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! >> 
Offline
(Photo: Stephanie Borden/grandeurmagazine.com)
If you have circled June 13-14 on your calendar in red, chances are you are anticipating the 83rd annual LeMans Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, the world's most famous automobile race.
Peter Sales lives LeMans every time he drives his rare 1956 Austin Healey 100/4 M roadster, painted in traditional black over Reno red, around south Fort Myers and beyond with his wife, Pam, at his side.
Because only 150 of these rare factory M LeMans models are believed to survive today, he would be entitled to enshrine this British beauty in his garage for safekeeping. Instead, he has added 8,000 miles to the odometer as he drives the car frequently to car shows and meetings of the British Car Club of Southwest Florida, graciously explaining the car's history and design to anyone who asks.
The car is so striking that almost everyone asks — at red lights, in parking lots, at gas stations.
The car's racing pedigree dates back to the early 1950s, when British legend Donald Healey modified 640 traditional Austin Healeys at his factory to inject racing DNA into a consumer car.
With a goal of producing a four-cylinder 2,660 cc power plant that could push the Austin Healey 100/4 M to 100 miles per hour, he used a high-lift camshaft, larger carburetors, high-compression pistons, a free-flowing intake manifold and a cold-air box.
On all 100/4 M models, the unique windscreen (British for windshield) folds down to improve aerodynamics. Healey designed louvers in the bonnet (British for hood) for airflow, to cool the pumped-up engine.
Across the bonnet, Peter has buckled the regulation LeMans leather strap, a safety requirement to secure the hood during any high-speed race.
British-born, Peter worked in the highly specialized ultra-high vacuum field, marketing equipment to university researchers, and moved to the United States in 1982. In 1991, he and friend Fran Hicks, a specialist hydraulic sales engineer, bought the 1956 Austin Healey 4/100 M for $14,000. The car had been dry-stored in a Pennsylvania barn for 17 years.
Their restoration took 10 years, about nine years longer than they had expected, but they met their goal of showing the car in the 2001 Schenley Park Vintage Car Show in Pittsburgh. Since then, the 1956 Austin Healey 4/100 M has won many trophies, including the Prestige Award from the Gold Coast British Sports Car Club in Boca Raton.
What's his advice for anyone who is thinking of restoring a classic car?
"Put together a generous cost estimate," Peter chuckles, "then double that!"
