Great idea....makes you realize that you are not the only nut with a sports car.
I live in the village of Manotick, Ontario, just a few miles south of our
nation's capital. I'm pushing 60, and retired a couple of years ago after
spending 34 years as a commissioned officer in the Canadian Navy. Although
I was an engineer by education (Electrical 1960 U of Toronto; Industrial PG
U of T 1967), I was in the executive (operations) line of the Navy. I had
my initial introduction into sports cars and their life style in 1961 when
a close friend asked me to navigate for him in car rally being run by the
Victoria (BC) Motor Sports Club. We came near last in his TR3, but the
experience got me immediately enthusiastic. Within a couple of months I
traded my 55 Pontiac in for a 1959 A-H 3000, which I then started using in
rallies, autocrosses and the like. I remained very active with a number of
sports car clubs, depending where the navy posted me, and my rallying had
improved such that I was the runner up for the Canadian championship in
1967, the was the Canadian champion navigator in 68. My car had changed to
a new Volvo 123GT by this time. My naval career then strangely took
precedence for a number of years, but then, in 1980, I was moved back to
Victoria, BC, and I got the bug for a sports car again. Although in my
earlier Healey days I had considered Alpines to be a somewhat lesser breed
(there was an unofficial precedence scale of who should wave at whom when
passing another sports car...Jags were on the top of the list, then Healeys
and other larger engined sports cars, and so on down the list, based
somewhat on engine size and/or retail price. If you were lower on the list
than the car you were approaching, you waved first!!), I now became rather
enamoured with a very neat and clean, but tired, 1963 Alpine Series III GT
which was owned by a fellow naval officer. He was only the second owner of
this car, which had never been off Vancouver Island in its life, which
accounted for its totally rust free status. He agreed to sell, and the
price was agreed. I replaced the engine and principle accessories with
those from a Series V which had a rebuilt 1725, but whose body was a total
write off (cost me $400 for the whole car as I remember), and I drove the
GT very happily until 1995. During this period the car underwent a number
of improvements, such as the replacement of the disc wheels with wire
wheels, and it travelled all the way east to Halifax, NS, then back to
Ottawa, ON. In June1995 while driving the Alpine at mid-day, I drove off
the road at 50mph in order to avoid a large object which had just fallen
right in front of me from a truck going the other way. I missed the first
phone pole, but failed to notice the power pole immediately behind it,
which I hit head on. Thanks to the inherently strong construction of the
car, and to the harness type seat belt which I was wearing (I wrote a note
to the news group some months ago on this) I stepped out basically
uninjured (bruise on left shoulder where the belt went over). The bodywork
from the firewall back was totally intact...the windshield was undamaged
and both doors opened and closed as before...however the front was
totalled, and the impact was absorbed by the front cross member, and the
power train, to the extent that the rear axle was bent back about three
inches in the middle even though the outer ends remained in their correct
locations. My insurance company gave me a very nice settlement, including
permitting me to buy back the wreck, and I then started looking for a
replacement car. I looked at several Alpines, most of which were more or
less rusted through, but in May this year I bought a Series IV which I
found in a barn in Missouri during my travels. The car was in desperate
mechanical condition, was missing a number of fittings and accessories, but
there was not a speck of rust anywhere in the frame or bodywork. The car is
at present in my basement undergoing a large but not total rebuild which
includes installing many of the still good parts from the GT. Just after
buying the GT in 1980, I found and bought a brand new factory 1725 short
block, which I have been carrying around with me wherever I moved, thinking
that one day I would put it in the GT. Well, it's now on an engine stand
being built up with bits from the two other engines (the GT and the Series
IV) and will be installed in the Series IV before the spring.
Over the years I have done virtually all the work on my cars myself. In
1981, while re-engining the GT, I and a friend did a total frame up
restoration on a 1964 Tiger 260. I presently am spending much of my time
doing an off the frame restoration on a 1936 Packard Touring Coupe which I
and a long time rallying friend purchased in 1995, and which should be
running by next summer. My cars keep me pretty busy!!
Visit my home page at http://www.igs.net/~edalsj/
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