A DB-4!!!! Can I kick you too?
My blunder was a 1962 Corvette, Roman red over black, both tops, 300 horse, 4
speed, 3.09:1 gears. Yes you may kick me too, although I am confident if I had
kept it I would not own a drivers license. So maybe it was the right choice in
retrospect.
I do own an Austin Healey (a 1953 Hundred) currently which I have restored
from a basket over the last three years and am using as my daily driver. It's
not as hot as a Vette, but you can't beat the styling, it's a blast to drive
and the cops don't give it a second look.
Bill Lawrence
"C. Marin Faure" wrote:
> I missed the bulk of this thread, but I assume from what I did see it was
> about what people drove in college. Most people started at the bottom and
> progressed upwards in terms of the quality and "coolness" of their cars. I
> sort of went the other way. I started college with an Austin Healey 3000
> which a previous owner had fitted with a Jaguar XK engine. A bit of a
> mistake, this. The car went like the bugger on the straight but the
> balance was off and it didn't corner so well (not that 3000s corner all
> that well, anyway).
>
> The Colorado State University sports car club held races- well, time trials
> really- up the winding road in the bottom of the Poudre River canyon. This
> was in the 1960s and they used to close off the road for us. I'm sure this
> kind of activity would never be allowed today. The Healey was great fun in
> these events if for no other reason that it was always a big guess as to
> how it would react in each curve. But who in college is into handling and
> stuff- the car looked great and sounded fabulous with it's twin pipes
> exiting just ahead of the rear wheel on the drivers side, which is what it
> was all about, right?
>
> I should have kept this car, as we all should have kept something we owned
> in our youth, but I sold it when I transferred to the University of Hawaii
> in the late '60s. There I inherited my mother's 1962 VW Beetle, which I
> drove until I bought the Land Rover in 1973.
>
> I envy the people I see with Austin Healey 3000s today. It's one of those
> cars that, in my opinon, the designers got just right in terms of the
> lines, at any rate. Were I able to go back and do it all again, I'd have
> kept the car, which was in mint condition physically, lost the XK engine,
> and put back a Healey engine. It wasn't as sophisticated a powerplant as
> the XK, but based on the stock Healey 3000s I've driven, I think it was
> actually better suited to the car.
>
> In high school I had a girlfriend who's older brother had an MG-TD. He
> used to let us borrow it sometimes when we went on dates. That was a fun
> car to drive, although in retrospect it was pretty crude and gutless. But
> in its day, it was quite a cool thing to be driving around in.
>
> It's funny how things that are looked down on when they're new gain great
> status when they get old (except people....:-) ) Our neighbor's new
> husband has an immaculate Ford Edsel, which I believe is a flip top. I
> seem to recall that Ford made flip-top Edsels in addition to the more
> common, what was it, Galaxy 500? The guy next door just moved the car from
> wherever it was stored into the garage, so I've not had a chance to examine
> it. But my wife, who has seen it close up, says it's better than new.
> It's apparently worth quite a bit, but I can remember walking to school in
> the '60s in Honolulu and seeing my first Edsel on the road. God, everyone
> thought it was ugly. We all made fun of the vertical grill, but today, I
> actually think the front end is a very nice design. The back end, on the
> other hand, is rather ugly.
>
> The car I still kick myself for not keeping was an Aston Martin DB-4, but
> that's a whole other story and not related to college. I did have a mint
> condition National Match M-1 Garand rifle in college in Colorado, which I
> also sold when I returned to Hawaii, another Stoopid Kid blunder.
>
> ________________________
> C. Marin Faure
> (original owner)
> 1973 Land Rover Series III-88
> 1991 Range Rover Vogue SE
> Seattle, WA
> marin.faure@boeing.com
> faurecm@earthlink.net
> _______________________________________________
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> LRO@land-rover.team.net
> http://land-rover.team.net/mailman/listinfo/lro
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