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Re: NEW TOPIC - Why did you buy your Spit?

To: spitfires@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: NEW TOPIC - Why did you buy your Spit?
From: Michael Hargreave Mawson <OC@46thFoot.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:21:11 +0100
In article <B4B2CBE518F8EB46A7286FFD05AF9ACDB6AE4C@kent2kexchange>, 
"St.John, Kenneth" <ken.stjohn@hexcel.com> writes
>Driving to work today in the sun I was thinking about my Spitfire and MGs
>and why we are attracted to one car or another and why.

>I'm curious as to how others got bit!

Excellent question -and hopefully the start of a fascinating thread.

My Story
^^^^^^^^
My story starts in about 1977.   A friend of mine at school was 
absolutely fanatically obsessed with Spitfires.   Me, I thought the 
lines were unappealing, and that the Spit looked like an insect, with 
head/thorax/abdomen - yuck!   We were both ten years old at the time.

By the time we were twelve, Triumph had announced that the Spitfire was 
to be discontinued.   My friend was distraught, and begged and pleaded 
with his father to buy him one to put in store until he could drive it. 
Eventually his father (who obviously earned far too much money) agreed, 
and, at the age of twelve-and-a-half, my best friend, David Jenkyn, 
became the owner of one of the last 1500s ever sold.

I thought this was pretty cool.

Shimmy forward twenty-one years, and you find a different Mike.   A Mike 
who appreciated the Michelotti design, and who sneered at the boring 
lines of MGs and BMW Z3s.   A Mike who had experienced classic British 
motoring with the likes of Morris Minor PWR 920E and Sunbeam Stiletto 
JGO 212K (both of which he reluctantly parted with many years before). 
Mike was now married with a child, and his wife had just gone out and 
bought a brand new "family car".   Well, hey!   *I* didn't need to 
provide the "family car" anymore - I could buy something I actually 
liked, rather than something "practical".   I picked up a copy of "North 
Thames Auto-Trader" and started looking through the "Classics" section. 
Guess what?   The cheapest car in there was also the one nearest to me, 
and it was a Spitfire 1500.   The rest, as they say, is history...

ATB

-- 
Mike
Ellie - 1963 White Herald 1200 Convertible GA125624 CV
Carly - 1977 Inca Yellow Spitfire 1500 FM105671

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