Hi Guest!
Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
STOP!! Never post your email address in open forums. Bots can "harvest" your email! If you must share your email use a Private Message or use the 
smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
johntennyson
Senior Member
Offline
So I logged in and the site said "Hey, you've never posted here. Tell us about yourself, etc." so O.K., I will:
When I got my license in '77, I wound up with my Grandma's hand-me-down, a '65 Fairlane. That being the age of Disco, such a thing would not do. That being the age of Disco, neither would any of the currently available new cars, which all basically sucked at that point. Dream car? A '65-70 Mustang, until Pop test drove a '70 Mach One and had visions of said fastback wrapped around one of our local redwoods. About the same time, he dragged me down to Laguna Seca to see something new, vintage sports car racing. Did I mention that when I was a kid, Pop had a BT7? Every night he'd come roaring up the hill and double-clutch down through the gears to make the U-turn in front of our house, so that was the other dream car. Anyway, at the vintage races, I got hooked, especially when I saw Stan Huntley's Sebring Bugeye finish third in class. A short time later, Pop took me along on a test drive in a pretty marginal '72 Spitfire and given my limited means, a Bugeye went to the top of the list. For $375, I picked up my basket case on 31 Dec. 1978 (dragged it home is probably more accurate) and have restored it twice since. Other stuff has obviously come and gone, but not the Sprite.
After about 20 years with the 948, starting in 2000, I took it back to a bare bodyshell and started over, eventually ending up with something which looked pretty similar, 'cos I did the same paint scheme. This time, though, it's got a 1275 fed by a 45mm SK (Japanese DCOE copy), Pertronix/MSD ignition, a Rivergate 5 spd. conversion and probably most importantly, the dual circuit brake system out of a '70 Midget, with the Winners' Circle Spitfire disc conversion up front. As a newbie, I didn't notice when I got it that the rear deck had been cut to the outline of a Mk II, but being just over 6', I really don't mind!
When I got my license in '77, I wound up with my Grandma's hand-me-down, a '65 Fairlane. That being the age of Disco, such a thing would not do. That being the age of Disco, neither would any of the currently available new cars, which all basically sucked at that point. Dream car? A '65-70 Mustang, until Pop test drove a '70 Mach One and had visions of said fastback wrapped around one of our local redwoods. About the same time, he dragged me down to Laguna Seca to see something new, vintage sports car racing. Did I mention that when I was a kid, Pop had a BT7? Every night he'd come roaring up the hill and double-clutch down through the gears to make the U-turn in front of our house, so that was the other dream car. Anyway, at the vintage races, I got hooked, especially when I saw Stan Huntley's Sebring Bugeye finish third in class. A short time later, Pop took me along on a test drive in a pretty marginal '72 Spitfire and given my limited means, a Bugeye went to the top of the list. For $375, I picked up my basket case on 31 Dec. 1978 (dragged it home is probably more accurate) and have restored it twice since. Other stuff has obviously come and gone, but not the Sprite.
After about 20 years with the 948, starting in 2000, I took it back to a bare bodyshell and started over, eventually ending up with something which looked pretty similar, 'cos I did the same paint scheme. This time, though, it's got a 1275 fed by a 45mm SK (Japanese DCOE copy), Pertronix/MSD ignition, a Rivergate 5 spd. conversion and probably most importantly, the dual circuit brake system out of a '70 Midget, with the Winners' Circle Spitfire disc conversion up front. As a newbie, I didn't notice when I got it that the rear deck had been cut to the outline of a Mk II, but being just over 6', I really don't mind!
)
