I've enjoyed hearing everyones story; here's mine:
We lived in Hawaii for awhile when I was a boy, and my Dad
had a BRG Spitfire that we would motor around the island in.
I think the fun we had in the car was my incentive to purchase
an LBC of my own...
I bought my Series I over 8 years ago for $200 - it had been
someone's parts car and was pretty well picked over. It came
with many boxes of spare parts (most of which had nothing to
do with an Alpine :-(, and an unusable engine & tranny - it had
slipped into gear while being towed which resulted in a piston
through the block and the flywheel/clutch cover/input shaft
through the bell housing. My intent was to fix it up enough
to make it drivable. I had a rebuildable block, and purchased
a SV engine for the vibration damper (hard to come by in those
days), which resulted in my using the SV head on the early block.
I also used a transmission of dubious origin, some MGB seats
from the wrecking yard, and a quicky paint job to make it
presentable. This car was my daily driver for several years,
and never gave me any trouble!
I'm a 36 year old family man now (even own a dreaded yup-mobile
V*lvo wagon). My wife Marla has helped me with several restoration
projects over the years, the last being our Tiger in '95. We have
a 1 year old son, Stefan, who is very inquisitive and likes to
ride around in the 'beams! I've worked for the same printed circuit
board manufacturer for over 18 years (http://www.sval.com), but am
changing careers in a couple of weeks. I'm going to have more of
a commute, so it looks like the Alpine is going to be pressed back
into daily service (at least for awhile). Eventually we hope to
fully restore it so that Stefan will have a car to drive, but
fortunately we've got plenty of time before that happens ;-)
............................................................
Kevin Meek (kevnmeek(at)netcom.com) Sunbeam Tiger B382002202
Santa Cruz, California Sunbeam Alpine SI B9011324
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