The Buddy & Betty Houck Story

Many people each year attend British Car events of one kind or the other, some driving thousands of miles to be with and greet friends, others just pop down the road a few miles to their local meet. However, many other owners claim it’s too far, or they haven’t time, or their car is not good enough to take to a meet! Well let me regale you with a story of courage and determination, a passion for British cars and a life long friendship sharing the passion. It might just make all of you out there who think it’s too much trouble to think again!

Buddy Houck met his wife-to be Betty, at the Cotton Bowl roller rink in Dallas in 1946. Buddy at the time was a mechanic and Betty a clerk. They married and moved to Oklahoma City where Buddy raced a 1937 Ford stock car for Rusty Compton under the name of Dick Houck, which was actually his father’s race name, as his then boss did not want Buddy to be associated with motor sport! Most teams then, also had a lady driver, who was known as a “powder puff” driver. Following Buddy’s lead, and using the theory, “if you can’t beat ’em-join ’em” Betty also entered stock car racing as a ‘powder puff driver, piloting a 1937 Ford 2 door coupe for a team from Texas.

She became quite successful and was only prevented from winning the Oklahoma Championship after the officials discovered that the fuel in her car was not legal, a fact of which she was unaware! However despite this, she finished runner up in the Oklahoma Championships having run fewer races than anyone else due to an appendectomy and subsequent absence from the track!

Buddy’s interest in MGs began when a friend of his brought him a TD, with Transmission problems which Buddy offered to fix in his garage. This led to Buddy acquiring a TD of his own. He had by this rime, married Betty, and had joined Kodak Ltd working in the microfilm department. Buddy stayed with the company 35 years until he retired in February of 1983. Not one to be idle for long he started his own business again associated with the Microfilm industry.

Anything that Buddy could do, Betty also determined she would do! When Buddy obtained his pilots license, she followed his lead and got a license of her own, both of them flying Acroncas and Cessnas

It was in November o! 1983 that tragedy struck and Buddy suffered a massive stroke and was hospitalized, an event which totally incapacitated him for three months. Always a fighter, he was back to 95% in 6-9 months and he was still fairly mobile. However, in 1984 Buddy had to sell the business he had started, his handicap proving too much.

He and Betty had attended their first MG. GOF at Tulsa in 1976 and the MG bug had really bitten by then, and he possessed several MGs with one of which he won an trophy, and he and Berry have been showing one or other of their great collection of British sports cars ever since, winning numerous awards. At one time he owned a four seater TD which was believed to be the forerunner of the Inskip stretched TD, also an MGA Twin Cam and an MGA 1500 both of which he sold to fund further purchases.

However, the stroke problem reoccurred and by 1990 Buddy was confined to an electric wheel chair, and needed oxygen close by wherever he travelled. “Travelled”?! I hear you say? Yes! Despite his handicap, Buddy and Betty are regular attendees at the major MG events across the country. From swap meets at Hershey and Carlisle, to Harrisburg for the “Best TC in the World” event where they placed fourth! From their home in Tulsa to Toronto for the NAMGAR meet, where further trophies were gained, the Houcks travel many miles each year in a GMC motorhome trailering one or two of their collection of classics and Buddy’s wheelchair. Throughout their travels Betty does all the driving, and claims navigator Buddy gets her lost! They are regulars at the MG Summer Party in Grand Rapids, and your scribe met them most recently this past July at the GOF Central in Arkansas where they not only placed 3rd in the TC (Betty having polished it to perfection!) but also brought along a 1959 Berkeley for the attendees to admire into the bargain! A diorama of the Houck’s garage also won first place in the model contest! Not bad for someone who spends a great deal of his life in a wheelchair!

Married for 46 years the Houcks have lived for the past thirty years in Tulsa.OK where they are members of the Brown County MGT Club. Their current stable includes no less than five TDs, a TF, a TC, an MGA, the aforementioned Berkeley and a Bugeye Sprite! Betty and Buddy both work on the cars, however, the really difficult tasks are undertaken by a friend, Donnie Day in the quaintly named town of Hogeye, Arkansas!

We asked Betty to recount the most eventful moment of their lives on the road, naturally thinking that the GMC motorhome would be a prime player because of the miles pulling a trailer. Not so!-she told us of the time when they attended a GOF at Snowmass in Colorado. After she had refused to drive Buddy in the TF up the 12000 foot high Independence pass, he settled for a sight seeing tour with him navigating and Betty doing the driving. It wasn’t too long before she realized that he had navigated her up the pass without her knowing!

On the way down she suddenly felt the steering on the TF “let go” and lock up this with a fierce drop on one side and a wall of rock on the other. “I was terrified,” Berry recalls. “And [I] was literally frozen in the car”. Soon along came some other T Types, and upon examination it was discovered that two bolts had fallen out of the steering box coming round the last bend down the mountain! The others walked back and found them after which Buddy and Betty drove carefully down the rest of the way…

We have met Buddy and Betty along the great MG road many times and never cease to be amazed at their resilience and fortitude. Against all odds, cheerful of spirit, charming all they meet, they are an object lesson in what can be done if you really put your mind to it. A lesson which should be taken to heart by all the faint hearted,”Too far”,” “Haven’t the time”, “Too much trouble” brigade out there!

Ken Smith