I'm back from England! It was a wonderful two weeks full of sightseeing
and shopping and theatre going and CARS! Of course, that last one is
the one of interest to you guys, so I'll tell you about that.
We stayed in the middle of London and saw plenty of lovely cars. There
were two Minis on our street, one with a badge that said "Sprite" below
the Mini badge! I didn't know there were Mini Sprites. Anyone heard of
that before? I'm afraid I didn't get a picture of it because I couldn't
find it when I had my camera with me.
We regularly saw MGs, especially MGFs. I think there were more MGFs
than Z3s. I found that the MGF is not going to come to America, which
is saddening. I wish they'd come give the Miata a run for its money.
I'm guessing we saw two or three MGBs a week, too, but I don't recall
seeing any Sprites or Midgets on the road.
We did see a few at the National Classics and Sportscars Show in
Birmingham. There were two bugeyes...sorry, FROGeyes...at the show, one
Nevada Beige (which I liked!) at the Austin-Healey club booth and one
Old English White at the Sprites and Midgets club booth. There were two
Midgets at the S&M (!) Club booth, and a square-bodied Sprite at the
Healey club booth. One of the bugeyes had a couple of accessories that
I just had to get.
The first was a pair of headlight shades. They are curved chrome "hat
bills" and looked like eyelashes on the car. It looks to me that you
can either have stone guards on the headlights, as my car Healium does,
or the headlight shades, which I think I'll put on the barn bugeye.
The second item is a license holder. It's a round chrome frame that
screws to the windshield frame and holds a blue license. Question:
What is that license? Where can I get one? It was just so British, I
got it, but I wasn't able to locate an old license to put inside it.
I'll pay a reasonable price to anyone who has one of these.
Of course, we got lots of Austin-Healey garb and stickers and magazines
and even a bath towel with a Healey emblem embroidered on it. I picked
up a couple of little Austin A40 badges for Frank Clarici, who is just
eccentric enough to restore a car that no one in America has ever heard
of.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we had to drag each other home,
muttering about making a living and getting back to work on the barn
bugeye and feeding the cat, who much be a skeleton by now. I had been
to England before, but this was Paul's first trip. He's now as addicted
as I.
Wish you'd all been there!
Amy
P.S. For any animal right activists out there, we did get someone to
feed the cat while we were gone, but she is mad at us.
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