phile
08-06-2006, 09:15 PM
MY FIRST LBC
Dwight McCullough
dwight@bmcautos.com
I was a young man of 19, just coming home from my six months of active duty in the Minnesota Army National Guard at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Getting back into the swing of civilian life, doing the chores again on the family farm, working with my Dad building houses and other odd jobs. I met Ross Pugsley, a year or so younger than I. He was the son of my Dad's friend, Donald Pugsley. Ross had bought a 1961 Austin-Healey Sprite in Texas and drove it home to Minnesota. He had picked up some Texas slang. He called the Sprite a "Spraat". When he told me what he had bought, I had to question him several times before I could understand what kind of car it was.
Back when I was still in high school, they were building I-35 near Pine City. A road construction worker had driven his early 50’s Austin-Healey Le Mans into town where I had a chance to see this car and talk to him. I was really hooked.
As a young man I had seen "foreign sports cars" like MGs. I often talked about owning and driving them.
Later, in high school, I read the book, "The Red Car". It was about a MG TC that had been wrecked, rebuilt, and raced. This was far from the life I had grown up in, riding around in, and getting my drivers training from my Dad in, 1950s Dodges with their fluid drive clutches, or in his 1952 3/4 ton pickup with the non-synchromesh transmission.
Ross's Sprite needed an engine rebuild. It was smoking, leaking oil, and not running well. So he pulled the engine and sent it off to a friend who worked for one of the dealers in the city. This friend proceeded to rebuild the engine in his basement. And while Ross waited for this to get done, he kept pestering me to give him a hand putting it back together when he got it back. Being the car nut I am, I agreed.
The engine finally came, and we got 'er back together and running. But it was leaking fuel from those awful cork glands on the jets, and the water pump was spraying water back onto the ignition wires and cap. Needless to say it ran terrible. Ross’s solution was to "break it in" by doing what Phil Ethier calls an "Italian tune-up", revving the engine to high RPMs and driving like mad.
A few days later Ross let me know that in driving around town he had skidded off the road into a telephone pole, breaking the pole off at the bottom. He couldn't get the Sprite to run right and was disappointed that it didn’t have a bunch more power.
Ross was very discouraged, so he decided to bail out of the car while he was ahead. He offered to sell it to me!
I was shocked and surprised. I didn't think I could afford it. I was incapable of rebuilding the wreck, to say nothing of getting this complicated, sophisticated foreign sports car running right. After all, these S.U. carburetors were the "closest thing to fuel injection" that you can get. At least that’s what Ross told me.
Wow! This car has rack and pinion steering, a four-speed transmission, a tachometer, other gauges, plus these sophisticated S.U. carburetors!
I gave it a couple of days, and told Ross I would buy it on the condition that I could pay for it over a period of several months, store it in his Dad's pole barn, and work on it there. His Dad agreed to those terms and promised that he wouldn't tell my Dad. Whew! I knew my Dad would never go along with this, and as I understood the law in 1964, I couldn't sign for the car myself, as I was not yet 21 years old.
The left front of the bonnet was pushed in quite hard and the lower control arm was bent, but the steering seemed to be OK. I proceeded to tear the little car apart to assess the total damage. Then I made my first trip to The Cities to buy parts from the dealer and look for a used bonnet. Han's Auto Parts had a bonnet that had been smashed in on the right side. So I drove down to Washington Avenue and brought that home in the trunk of my first car, a red-and-white 1956 Plymouth two-door hardtop with the two-speed pushbutton drive automatic and a 270 cubic-inch V8.
I started to collect parts and plan how to get this all done. There was a body shop in Pine City that said they would work on it so I brought it into town, worried that Dad might find out.
The car sat and sat for what seemed like months to this 20-year-old. Finally, I asked them if they would do it, and they said they were too busy. I brought the car across town to another shop near the Plymouth dealer behind a service station. They got to work on it, and even let me help some. I did some of the sanding and worked on what little trim is on a Bugeye.
They cut both bonnets in two and welded them together. They welded over the old antenna hole, and sanded and painted the car. If only I could remember how much they charged me. I think I paid $225 for the car, and still had less than $800 in the car when it was done. But please don’t quote me, that's just too many years ago.
Here's where the story gets exciting. One day I told my folks I was going into town to take care of some business. Dad followed me to town, and as I was working, pulled in and got out of his car.
"What are you up to?"
"Working on a car"
"Whose car is it?"
"Mine."
"A fool and his money are soon parted."
I don't remember if he asked me how and where I bought it. My growing up and becoming independent was difficult to say the least. Dad really wanted to control much of what I did, thought and believed, and owning a foreign car wasn't in the plan. After all, he was a "Dodge Man". But to his credit, he didn’t make too much of a fuss. Mom was much more accepting.
By this time, my 21st birthday had come and gone. I had the car out by the freeway, south of town at the Sinclair station, (Hwy 70 & I-35) replaced the water pump, and fuel leak stopped. By October, in frustration at not having any say in the farmin' and arguing with Dad about various things, I decided it was time to leave.
So off to the city I went. Found some college friends of my brother-in-law and sister to live with in a big old house between Portland and Park Avenue in south Minneapolis. $100 a month rent divided between 5 guys was cheap. Got a job driving truck and forklift, throwing mail bags at Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for a whole $1.25 an hour!
A few months later a friend from work rode with me and drove the Sprite to my place in Minneapolis. Early the next year, February of 1966, I traded the car for a ?year-old red '65 MGB. That car had wire wheels and about 12,000 miles on it. The salesman at B&K Imports was John Nardi, who now in his eighties still sells cars for Downtown Jaguar.
There is more to this story. Will I tell more about it later? Only if I can remember.
Dwight McCullough
dwight@bmcautos.com
I was a young man of 19, just coming home from my six months of active duty in the Minnesota Army National Guard at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Getting back into the swing of civilian life, doing the chores again on the family farm, working with my Dad building houses and other odd jobs. I met Ross Pugsley, a year or so younger than I. He was the son of my Dad's friend, Donald Pugsley. Ross had bought a 1961 Austin-Healey Sprite in Texas and drove it home to Minnesota. He had picked up some Texas slang. He called the Sprite a "Spraat". When he told me what he had bought, I had to question him several times before I could understand what kind of car it was.
Back when I was still in high school, they were building I-35 near Pine City. A road construction worker had driven his early 50’s Austin-Healey Le Mans into town where I had a chance to see this car and talk to him. I was really hooked.
As a young man I had seen "foreign sports cars" like MGs. I often talked about owning and driving them.
Later, in high school, I read the book, "The Red Car". It was about a MG TC that had been wrecked, rebuilt, and raced. This was far from the life I had grown up in, riding around in, and getting my drivers training from my Dad in, 1950s Dodges with their fluid drive clutches, or in his 1952 3/4 ton pickup with the non-synchromesh transmission.
Ross's Sprite needed an engine rebuild. It was smoking, leaking oil, and not running well. So he pulled the engine and sent it off to a friend who worked for one of the dealers in the city. This friend proceeded to rebuild the engine in his basement. And while Ross waited for this to get done, he kept pestering me to give him a hand putting it back together when he got it back. Being the car nut I am, I agreed.
The engine finally came, and we got 'er back together and running. But it was leaking fuel from those awful cork glands on the jets, and the water pump was spraying water back onto the ignition wires and cap. Needless to say it ran terrible. Ross’s solution was to "break it in" by doing what Phil Ethier calls an "Italian tune-up", revving the engine to high RPMs and driving like mad.
A few days later Ross let me know that in driving around town he had skidded off the road into a telephone pole, breaking the pole off at the bottom. He couldn't get the Sprite to run right and was disappointed that it didn’t have a bunch more power.
Ross was very discouraged, so he decided to bail out of the car while he was ahead. He offered to sell it to me!
I was shocked and surprised. I didn't think I could afford it. I was incapable of rebuilding the wreck, to say nothing of getting this complicated, sophisticated foreign sports car running right. After all, these S.U. carburetors were the "closest thing to fuel injection" that you can get. At least that’s what Ross told me.
Wow! This car has rack and pinion steering, a four-speed transmission, a tachometer, other gauges, plus these sophisticated S.U. carburetors!
I gave it a couple of days, and told Ross I would buy it on the condition that I could pay for it over a period of several months, store it in his Dad's pole barn, and work on it there. His Dad agreed to those terms and promised that he wouldn't tell my Dad. Whew! I knew my Dad would never go along with this, and as I understood the law in 1964, I couldn't sign for the car myself, as I was not yet 21 years old.
The left front of the bonnet was pushed in quite hard and the lower control arm was bent, but the steering seemed to be OK. I proceeded to tear the little car apart to assess the total damage. Then I made my first trip to The Cities to buy parts from the dealer and look for a used bonnet. Han's Auto Parts had a bonnet that had been smashed in on the right side. So I drove down to Washington Avenue and brought that home in the trunk of my first car, a red-and-white 1956 Plymouth two-door hardtop with the two-speed pushbutton drive automatic and a 270 cubic-inch V8.
I started to collect parts and plan how to get this all done. There was a body shop in Pine City that said they would work on it so I brought it into town, worried that Dad might find out.
The car sat and sat for what seemed like months to this 20-year-old. Finally, I asked them if they would do it, and they said they were too busy. I brought the car across town to another shop near the Plymouth dealer behind a service station. They got to work on it, and even let me help some. I did some of the sanding and worked on what little trim is on a Bugeye.
They cut both bonnets in two and welded them together. They welded over the old antenna hole, and sanded and painted the car. If only I could remember how much they charged me. I think I paid $225 for the car, and still had less than $800 in the car when it was done. But please don’t quote me, that's just too many years ago.
Here's where the story gets exciting. One day I told my folks I was going into town to take care of some business. Dad followed me to town, and as I was working, pulled in and got out of his car.
"What are you up to?"
"Working on a car"
"Whose car is it?"
"Mine."
"A fool and his money are soon parted."
I don't remember if he asked me how and where I bought it. My growing up and becoming independent was difficult to say the least. Dad really wanted to control much of what I did, thought and believed, and owning a foreign car wasn't in the plan. After all, he was a "Dodge Man". But to his credit, he didn’t make too much of a fuss. Mom was much more accepting.
By this time, my 21st birthday had come and gone. I had the car out by the freeway, south of town at the Sinclair station, (Hwy 70 & I-35) replaced the water pump, and fuel leak stopped. By October, in frustration at not having any say in the farmin' and arguing with Dad about various things, I decided it was time to leave.
So off to the city I went. Found some college friends of my brother-in-law and sister to live with in a big old house between Portland and Park Avenue in south Minneapolis. $100 a month rent divided between 5 guys was cheap. Got a job driving truck and forklift, throwing mail bags at Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for a whole $1.25 an hour!
A few months later a friend from work rode with me and drove the Sprite to my place in Minneapolis. Early the next year, February of 1966, I traded the car for a ?year-old red '65 MGB. That car had wire wheels and about 12,000 miles on it. The salesman at B&K Imports was John Nardi, who now in his eighties still sells cars for Downtown Jaguar.
There is more to this story. Will I tell more about it later? Only if I can remember.