[Healeys] 100 MPH Club

[Randy Dickson]

My brother had a 1963 BJ7 back in 1969. I was 11 at the time.   It was
number #19669.  Still don't know where that car is.  
Anyway, my brother Scott being a poor college student at the time couldn't
afford tires.  He was always buying some used 60 spoke wheel tire combo off
of someone for $10 or so.  He never left a stop sign or traffic light
without laying rubber.  Needless to say, all of his tires were random brand
and bald.  He used to hit 100mph damn near every day.  He used to drive from
Des Moines to Ames, Iowa to Iowa State University to pick up "chicks" doing
100 on the back roads nearly the entire way.  He used to do 100mph on the
freeway in Des Moines as well, sometimes during rush hour.  Crazy!

When I was in college in 1981 I convinced my best friend Jeff to go look at
a 1959 100-6 in northern Iowa.  Jeff ended up buying it for $875 and we
hauled it back to Iowa City and began working on it.  It hadn't been driven
in years but it did come with new wheels and tires, which was rather odd.
We ordered carb rebuild kits, drained the fuel tank, changed the oil did a
bunch of other piddly-crap and got the beast running in a week!  Late one
night Jeff wanted to drive it sooo bad and was in such a hurry that he
wouldn't let me put the fenders or trunk lid back on.  This was a stripped
down Healey at this point because we were planning on restoring it.  There
was no top, no interior either.  Even the doors had no handles and we had to
wire them shut.  Jeff had to sit on a cement block, padded with a sack of
dog food.  He took it out west of town on IWV a very hill, but straight two
lane road.  Another friend of mine named Chris and I followed in a 1975
Vista Cruiser.  We had a hard time keeping up with the Healey.  As we
followed him our speedo said 115, but was probably 10 too high.    That was
just nuts.  It is strange how we all thought that we were invincible back
then and all of the chances we took.

Randy
63 BJ-7
60 BT-7