RE: Birthdays

[Jim Sneddon <jsneddon@gmail.com>]

OK... I guess I'll jump in too.

I guess you could say I was born with the British Car bug.  My mom was
just barely pregnant with me in 1966 when she and my dad were
rear-ended in an MGA coupe.... they walked away without a scratch.

One of my earliest childhood memories was riding with Dad in his VW
bus to Wilson Motors in Missouri and trading it in for a light blue
TR4.  I cried all the way home because we left "our" car there and
left with some strangers car.

Grandpa had picked up a MGTD sometime in the early sixties because he
fell in love with the one my dad had before he bought the "A".  In the
summer for a treat he'd take me to the A&W drive-in and I thought it
was so neat that we could fold down the windshield so the car-hop
could set our tray on it.

After the TR4, dad ended up getting more "practical" cars for the
family.... but he did manage to sneak a couple of Corvairs into the
mix to keep away from the boring "grocery getters" of the early 70's.

We inherited the TD after grandpa passed away.  It was never pretty
but it sure was a lot of fun.  I took my driving test in the middle of
the brutal St Louis summer in the TD.  The tester told me to go
outside and start up my car and he'd be out in a couple of minutes (to
get the AC cranking of course).  The look of dismay on his face when
he stepped outside was priceless.  The red leather was roasting by the
time he wedged his rather large frame in the passenger seat and he
jumped up with a YOW! when his back hit it.  We pulled out of the DMV,
he had me make 4 quick rights and he said "OK - that's enough"...  My
driving test lasted less than 2 minutes.

That fall my Dad found out that a co-worker had a TR3 parked in a
barn.... I bought it for a song and I've had it ever since.  At the
time I just couldn't fathom why anyone would just park a car in
storage and never take the 4 hours it took to fix it.

Well.... now I understand... Life happens...   after parking it in my
grandma's garage in 1991 and moving to the west coast I finally got it
running again about 2 weeks ago.  The look in my 2 kid's faces when I
drove them around the block was worth the wait.

I will do my best to pass on the appreciation for these amazing cars
to my kids.

I've got the bug really bad again and I'm at a point now where I'm
going to dump my boring econo-box I'm driving and find a runner
Triumph to make my daily commute a little more fun.  I just don't want
to put all the miles on the TR3.