nevets
Jedi Knight
Offline
This may be of interest...
Back when I was in high school in the late 60s, I lived near the town of Leonia, New Jersey, just outside Manhattan, which happened to be the location of the US headquarters for BMC (British Motor Corporation), the company that produced the Austin Healey. My best friend’s mother worked for BMC as a secretary, and through my good friend, I was able to get a healthy discount on parts for my bugeye Sprite. Later, when my friend graduated from high school, his graduation gift was a brand new ice blue BJ8, which even with the help of a generous employee discount, was a very extravagant graduation gift. Words cannot express the depth of my envy at the time. My drool could have easily washed away all the cosmoline from his new car.
Now the surreal part...at around that time that BMC was morphing into British Leyland, many of the cars offered by BMC, including the Healey, were being pulled from the line. Soon thereafter, the BMC headquarters in Leonia were vacated, with a vast quantity of the parts inventory unceremoniously chucked. Now get this, I actually rummaged through the overflowing dumpster behind the BMC building looking for parts, the majority of which were of no value to me because they were for cars other than my Sprite. I remember heaps of boxes of assorted components, all with that familiar red white and blue ruffled ribbon logo. Each box containing a new part wrapped in that wonderful smelling amber oil-paper. What was BMC thinking! What a treasure trove! If I only knew then what I know now...
Back when I was in high school in the late 60s, I lived near the town of Leonia, New Jersey, just outside Manhattan, which happened to be the location of the US headquarters for BMC (British Motor Corporation), the company that produced the Austin Healey. My best friend’s mother worked for BMC as a secretary, and through my good friend, I was able to get a healthy discount on parts for my bugeye Sprite. Later, when my friend graduated from high school, his graduation gift was a brand new ice blue BJ8, which even with the help of a generous employee discount, was a very extravagant graduation gift. Words cannot express the depth of my envy at the time. My drool could have easily washed away all the cosmoline from his new car.
Now the surreal part...at around that time that BMC was morphing into British Leyland, many of the cars offered by BMC, including the Healey, were being pulled from the line. Soon thereafter, the BMC headquarters in Leonia were vacated, with a vast quantity of the parts inventory unceremoniously chucked. Now get this, I actually rummaged through the overflowing dumpster behind the BMC building looking for parts, the majority of which were of no value to me because they were for cars other than my Sprite. I remember heaps of boxes of assorted components, all with that familiar red white and blue ruffled ribbon logo. Each box containing a new part wrapped in that wonderful smelling amber oil-paper. What was BMC thinking! What a treasure trove! If I only knew then what I know now...