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Re: How did we pick our Marque?

To: <caws52803@aol.com>, <british-cars@autox.team.net>,
Subject: Re: How did we pick our Marque?
From: "James Lea" <clocks@midcoast.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 18:20:58 -0500
== british-cars at autox.team.net supported in part by Fat Chance Garage
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<I have been curious how did you listers get so enthused about the LBC you 
own.  How did you get involved with that car?>

I graduated for high school in 55 and needed a first car but could get no 
help for my dad so it had to be cheap. In those day sit was rare for a HS 
student to have a car and there was only one( a 49 Ford chopped and 
channeled and driven by a kid named Choo Choo) in my whole school. For some 
reason I have never been able to understand I was never interested in 
American Iron like all of my friends. When they went to the drags I went to 
the closest circuit. Luckily I lived in Toledo Ohio so I was in the middle 
of Elkhart Lake, Mansfield, Watkins Glen and Mich international was just 
being built. I found a mashed  TD that had been side swiped by a truck and 
bought it for $100 and my first dates with Barb where spent with her sitting 
on a stool and passing me wrenches while I worked on getting that car back 
in running condition. That was 1955 and I have owned a long string of 
British cars ever since. Among them a TC, the TD, Two A's. Six B"s, A TR 
250, an E-type, A 120 drophead, and a few Rover P-4's. Oh, and a Formula V 
which I built to race in the late 60's. As of now we, ( I say we because I 
have found it much wiser to include the wife in all things car related), 
have a  58 Rover P-4, an Austin Healey BT7, Barb's 52 Triumph Mayflower and 
the 52 TD we bought last fall as the latest project.... Will they never 
end??????

I have been addicted to LBC's since I was a kid. So much so that one day in 
65 I ran across  Powder Blue MGA with wire wheels. It was just begging for a 
new owner and the price was sooooo cheap that in a rash moment I traded the 
family Chevy wagon in on it. Needless to say that was just too much and the 
wife was not happy as we had three babies at the time. She booted me right 
out of the house and it took almost a year and the sale of the MGA to get 
back in. Now we do all of our "car stuff" together and have been married for 
almost fifty years.

My story reminds me of the book "The Red Car" which I only read a few years 
ago but highly recommend for any gear head raised in the fifties or sixties. 
Boy, did it bring back the memories. Cheers, JL

James Lea
2 West St. PO Box 25
Rockport Maine 04856

1952 MG TD Vintage Racer
1953 Triumph Mayflower
1958 Rover P4
1962 Austin Healey 3000 BT7




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