Suddenly, I’m a Kid Again

by Mike Harton

I didn’t have a car of my own throughout high school, but it was not as if I didn’t have something to drive. My dad customized a ’50 Chevy pickup, which I drove to my graduation banquet, and a cool ’57 Ranchero, which I got to use whenever I had a date. My dad was a craftsman when it came to automobiles. Over the years, I learned a lot from him as we often worked until midnight in the one-car garage attached to our house. The only issue for me was that he insisted on cleaning everything up before we went to bed.

At any rate, I knew there was no chance of owning my own car. Dad made that very clear. I was the first person in my extended family to go to college, and he was afraid that if I had my own wheels, I’d never make it—he was probably right. He always said that when I graduated, I could have any car I wanted, and, needless to say, I had big dreams!

I had no idea what was in store when I rode home with a friend at the end of my sophomore year. Mom had dinner ready when I arrived. Dad ate quickly, jumped up, and said, as cover, that he was going fishing and I couldn’t go. Heck, I didn’t want to go—I was still enjoying dinner.

A few minutes later, I heard “varoom, varoom” and raced to the window. Outside, dad was sitting in a 1960 Austin Healey 3000. He got out and handed me the keys!

I drove the car all that evening, Saturday, to church on Sunday, but on Monday, it went in the garage and up on stands. You see, the car…well, it needed some work.

I had actually seen the car before when I was home for Christmas during my sophomore year. When my dad and I visited my grandfather’s garage, and while they were doing something in the back, I examined this awful-looking Austin Healey sitting to the side. Someone had literally painted the interior with a brush, and the exterior was faded and patched; all I could do was wonder, “Who would do this to such a cool car?!”

Little did I know that my grandfather was rebuilding the whole engine as a surprise.

Now that the secret was out, dad and I spent the entire summer working on the car: re-upholstering, re-chroming, and painting it. I did all the stripping and preparation, and dad did the spraying. Although not a mechanic or painter by trade, he learned well from his father, and I picked up enough to be…well, pretty good. We had the car ready to go the week before classes started in the fall.

Shortly after I returned to school, I met a gorgeous freshman and asked her out for a coke. I polished and cleaned the car beautifully, put the top down, and drove in front of the dorm to pick her up. The first thing she said when she saw the car? “Does it have a top?” Deflated, I put the top up, and she climbed in. Of course, those were the days of bouffant hairdos, and she couldn’t have her hair blowing.

When I went to graduate school three years later, that same girl—now my wife—would be carpooling across town with three other ladies to teach school. Four ladies in an Austin Healey? Well, it is a four-seater after all, right?

So the Healey was sacrificed for a VW Squareback, and that was that. In the meantime, I picked up a 1950 MG TD that I found sitting in front of a service station with a locked up engine. We pulled it home and discovered that it had thrown a rod, but it went through the water jacket and did no damage to the cylinder. Dad had it bored, put a sleeve in with a new rod and piston, and it ran fine! Of course, the engine was just the beginning. I didn’t know MGs were basically wooden frames wrapped in metal. Anyway, Dad did most of the work, spent most of the money on it, and I couldn’t say much to protest he wanted to sell it to buy an airplane.

Through the years, I had several sports cars and considered getting another Healey, but I had inherited several older cars from my dad and didn’t have room for any more.

Gradually, I sold them one by one and began to replace them with cars of my era. We have three boys, now men, and they really didn’t care for the older cars.

One of our sons has let his brothers know that the ’57 T-Bird is his. Another son fits the ’50 MG TD well, but the youngest is tall, the MG being too small for him, and he didn’t really care for the ’31 Model A Roadster, as I said.

Then a ’62 AH 3000 was advertised in our AACA magazine and it was close by. Having held on to the Model A long enough to honor my dad, I sold it and bought the AH, a car that my sons can all fit in and drive. I did not know until the purchase that the ’62 was the only year for three SU carbs. I’ll let the boys decide who gets what when I’m gone, though I have an idea.

In the meantime, I get to drive the Austin Healey, my wife’s hair is shorter now so she’ll ride with me, and suddenly I’m a kid again!