I don't know about the Gt, but that's one great family. John
Carl W. French wrote:
> I know this is a long one but I thought it too great an LBC story to not
> send it out to the list.
>
> Carl F
> 67B
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Sera'
> Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 22:40:39 -0500
> From: BFrench <bfrench@nh.ultranet.com>
> To: rjakcl@erie.net
> CC: bjfrench@hopper.unh.edu, cfrench@cybertours.com
>
> Sera'...it will be!
> This is a great car story, and I have held off the telling because it is
> difficult to do justice to it.
>
> When we finished restoring Ben's '74 MGB (last of the chrome bumpers), I
> said "I'm ready to do one of my own now. I'd like to restore a 1967 (my
> favorite year) MGB-GT, because Ben and Carl have nice roadsters, and I
> like the looks of the GTs. I had recently started a new business, and
> you know how that goes...There was no way I could do such a thing for a
> year or more.
>
> Time passes, and the sales list on the web site for Brit-Bits (our local
> LBC store) shows a 1967 MGB-GT for about half the price of a roadster.
> It came at the "trough" of the starting-your-own-business-cycle, and I
> was unable to buy it, but I began to enjoy the idea of it.
>
> Curiosity got the best of me, and I drove over to inspect the car. I was
> completely taken by it! It was the car of my dreams! "My" '67 GT! I
> wrote the VIN number on a bank slip and carried it around in my pocket.
> I began to write about it. I began to read about it. I began to talk
> about it. I virtually "owned" it, in my imagination!
>
> I began to visit it .... three or four times a week!
>
> My brother, Carl, and my older son, Ben both have MGBs, and the began to
> wonder about ways to make this happen for my birthday, a month away. You
> offered the encouragement to just "go in like you were 17 years old and
> offer what you can." Carl, his fiance, Judy, Carl's kids, Dan and Amy,
> Ben, my wife, Susan and son Brandon, and my father all got together and
> went to see the car. (Several of them had accompanied me on my little
> visits, before.)
>
> They poked, they probed, they went over it with a magnet....They all
> went inside...
> I wish I could have seen them surround our friends at Brit-Bits in Rye,
> NH! Eight of them (I think) around the counter with envelopes of cash
> contributions, rolls of quarters, you get the idea. "How can I refuse an
> offer from a crowd like this!", or words to that effect, and the deal
> was closed! This family consortium owned "My" 1967 MGB-GT for real!!!
>
> They owned it for three weeks...The conspiracy became huge!
>
> I continued to visit it, and dream that things would work out. That it
> would wait all winter for me on the back row at Brit-Bits until I could
> own it. My family was supportive..."If it is meant to be, it will
> be."..."You should make them an offer after the holidays, We support
> you!"
> The folks at the dealership were all in on it..."If Brad asks, it is
> still available, but if anyone else asks, it's sold." I enjoyed the
> fantasy of "owning" it (in my imagination). I shopped for '67 GTs on the
> internet. I carried the VIN in my pocket...
>
> The day of my birthday was as well orchestrated as a major military
> campaign! I was kept occupied for lunch, and frozen yogurt, and errands
> to the store (So my wife could call in to Ben and Carl's command post
> for the latest report!)
>
> Sam and Mark, from the dealership, convoyed to the car to my house, with
> Ben and Carl and his family. They hid it in the garage...Then thay all
> fled the scene!
>
> Susan delivered me precisely on schedule, and the whole family began to
> spontaneously arrive. Packages came through the door. We began to visit,
> and they gave me my first gift...I opened it to find a new MG/Safety
> Fast baseball cap...
>
> The little MG key was attached and they handed me the garage door
> opener! "You'd better go outside, Dad"!, they said.
>
> We were all pretty choked-up at that point, as I hit the button on the
> garage door...
> There she was...All MINE!!! The biggest red ribbon was completly
> wrapped around the car and a five-foot bow was on the top of the
> windshield, cascading down the hood!!!
> It was really magnificent. I wept, I talked, I told the whole story of
> my infatuation. Ben said "Fire it up, Dad!" I turned the key, and
> drove her out into the fading light. She was originally white, then dark
> "Mineral Blue". Now she had oxydized to a sort of dull plum color.
> ...Didn't matter, She was the car of my dreams!
>
> I have had her for about a week. My arms will look like Popeye's after
> all of the rubbing that I have done! Her dark blue paint is coming
> back. The windows are clean. The black w/ red piping interior will need
> a lot of work. Carl wants to restore the wood-rimmed Moto-Lita steering
> wheel. The wire wheels will clean up with the special brush my wife
> bought me this weekend! I have Antique plates and a beach sticker for
> it. She gets her inspection sticker tomorrow!
>
> Is this a great life or what? Your friend, Brad French. Hampton, NH
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