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New member from Fredonia, NY

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NickC

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New years greetings to you all,

I'm Nick Cherau and I own a 1971 Mark III Midget. My first LBC, bought cheap in 1961, was a Jaguar MK VII Saloon (truly a Large British Car), followed by a 1954 Sunbeam Talbot and then a 1964 Triumph Spitfire. After a short hiatus as an Alfa Giulietta Spider owner in the 1970's -80's I bought a 1966 MGB and a 1954 Morris Minor convertible.

Lest any of you get the wrong idea none of the above cars cost me over $150 with the exception of the Alfa which I bought used out of a dealers showroom on Watertown Square on the western outskirts of Boston for the lordly sum of $800, my military mustering out cash. A brand new Saab 96 V4 sold fully equipped back then for $2,800 and the big Merit gas station on Watertown Square was charging $.25 a gallon for regular. Those were the days:glee:

Around that time period one of my wife's coworkers gave us an Austin America with less than 20K on the odometer. After shoveling a lot of money and parts into it in a doomed effort to keep it operational I let it go with a sigh of relief. Having the engine and the automatic transmission share a common oil supply was a lousy idea, what was BMC thinking :rolleyes2: And those flimsy rubber CV joints with their very short life expectancy:stupid: Other than that model I've always enjoyed working on and driving LBC's and now that I'm retired I'm loving the thrill of exploring the back roads of Chautauqua County, NY in my Midget while listening to the mechanical symphony of noises emanating from the engine, gearbox and differential.

1971midget.jpg P1000359 (Large).jpg P1000154 (Large).jpg

Here's to a safe and prosperous 2016, Nick
 
Nick - welcome to BCF. You have quite the LBC experience!

My first was my college car back around 1966 - a 1955 Jaguar Mk VII like this:



My parents figured if I were in an accident, that car would protect me like a Sherman tank.

Unfortunately (?) my addiction continued.

Tom M.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi Tom,

Did your Mk VII have the ghostly green dash lighting? That and the dyed green leather upholstery was what really grabbed me. I eventually traded it to a guy who had one with a rusted out body. My engine needed a valve job badly and back then I didn't have the money or the experience. I helped the new buyer, Stan Hallett, switch engines and transmissions. We pulled them as a unit, boy it was like Ahab pulling the white whale out of the sea. All this in a rented unheated garage in a seamy part of Boston in the dead of winter. Our only source of heat was a bank of floodlights left by some previous occupant. Looked like something a body and paint guy would have used. Probably to repaint a stolen car. I always wondered about the provenance of the Jag, having bought it so cheap from a shifty guy in a dangerous part of town. No rust at all and I found some recent Texas plates buried under a pile of debris in the trunk. I took a H. Hauser Segovia classical guitar in trade. I think I did pretty well on that deal although my first wife wound up with the guitar in the divorce :wink-new:

Nick
 
Hi Nick - my ol' Jaguar was light blue exterior, red leather and walnut interior. Four speed manual with Borg Warner (?) electric overdrive.

I remember all the conveniences (sun roof, steering wheel, adjustable seats and seat backs, etc.) were mechanical, not electric. Chrome cranks operated everything. Also remember the "glow in the dark" numbers on the Smiths gauges, with the ultraviolet panel lights. My girlfriend du jour called them the "purple passion lights". No comment.

Panel was similar to this, but mine was Left hand drive.

View attachment 40627

Also, the switchable gas tanks inside the "boot" (one for regular, one for premium), the drop down tool kits in the kick panels of the doors, and the flower vase holders at the sides of the rear seat. And it had three engine air filters: one for town, one for country, and one for "spirited driving".

Paid $800 for that ten year old car. If only I had kept it ...

Wow - what memories. And at eight mpg, not all the memories were positive! :eek:

Tom M.
 
Drove pat Fredonia this morning - white out lake effect snow - what a miserable couple of hours! That said, welcome, do you know about British Car Day in Oakville Ontario third sunday of september - largest one day british car show in North America!
 
Welcome from sunny New Mexico (Sunny except for the 26 inches of snow we just got hit with)
 
Welcome to the Forum!
 
Boy! nothing says luxury like those old Jag saloon dashes, all that walnut! I too wish I'd kept my Mark VII. Over the years I've owned a lot of cars I feel that way about. I never had the space, or the money, to keep more than a couple around. During my peak earning years I kept three cars registered, inspected and on the road. A 1966 MGB, a 1954 Morris Minor convertible, and a 1960 Alfa Giuliettaconvertible.

Sundays I'd go through the used car ads in the Boston Globe looking for interesting cars for sale cheap. Like the 1954 Sunbeam Talbot that needed a differential pumpkin. Eighty dollars and it was mine. It was sitting in a gas station parking lot and it was sometime in winter. I remember vividly lying underneath it, freezing cold, while I installed the used pumpkin I'd gotten from a junkyard in Chelsea, MA. I had no idea of how lucky I was to find another Sunbeam Talbot. There were very few in the USA.

At one time I owned a 1961 Mercedes 220 sedan. I bought it from a commercial fisherman for $500. Not a thing wrong with it, he just needed cash fast. He was going through a divorce. My wife and I took some memorable road trips in that car. 110 mph and smooth as glass with the most comfortable seats I've ever experienced. And for a large heavy car it handled beautifully. I will say I was shocked at the prices for repair parts. Rear brake shoes - $400, exhaust system $1,000 and those were the 40% off to the trade prices as I was a garage owner at the time.


https://www.google.com/search?q=alf...ved=0ahUKEwiTi9uXubfKAhVIKB4KHeUcAq0QvwUIGigA
 
Thank you Basil. I've read many of your helpful posts on the MGE forum.
 
John-Peter,
Thank you for mentioning the meet in Oakville. I wasn't aware of it. We Yanks can be shockingly insular, especially with regards to our neighbors to the north. Oakville is a nice little drive from here. I'll look forward to next September then.
 
Hey Nick, welcome to the forum. Nice little buggy you have there. I'm not terribly active here at BCF due to my choice of ownership of the red headed stepchild of LBC's, a 1974 Jensen Healey (not many of us here). I pop in from time to time, though, to see what's happening. However, your thread caught my eye because my wife's mother and sister both live in Fredonia, and we travel there a few times a year for a visit. Maybe next time I can look you up and we can compare Lucas wiring stories!
 
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