DVJC - The Early Years

Posted By NE33 on 23 Mar 2007
DVJC March 11, 2007, PresentationGrace, Space, Pace, and Utter Confusion The DVJC The Early Years By Larry Schear Let me take you on a trip through the Time Tunnel, back to the early Sixties, days when Studebakers, DeSotos, Hudsons, Nashes, Ramblers, and Fred Mack and his white Jaguar XK-120 Fixed Head Coupe still roamed out newly-built network of interstate highways (come to think of it, only Fred is STILL doing that!). I was a kid in college, growing up in a Studebaker family in a world ruled by Ford, Chevy, and Mo-Par, and I was intrigued by motorcycles, having progressed from a Peugeot 2hp moped, which I had assembled from pieces in a junkyard in South Philly, through a couple of small Hondas, to a Triumph 650 Thunderbird, which I took out to New Mexico one glorious summer!. My buddy at college and I were cruising the streets of West Philadelphia one evening after doing some homework, and we saw a pile of metal by the side of the road. We asked some nearby kids what had happened and they directed us to a nearby house, where we met a kid wrapped in bandages, along with his grandmother. Seems he had purchased a motorcycle from a friend and went out to ride it. He had no license, no experience, no helmet, no registration, no insurance, and no brains, cause he went riding in a light rain on a street with Belgian Blocks and trolley tracks! His street went into a Tee, as he was slipping out of control down the wet tracks. He bounced over the curb at the Tee, ricocheted off a telephone pole and a steel light pole, across the sidewalk, and into a stone wall with enough force to completely snap off the entire front fork, leaving the pile of metal we had seen. He crawled to his grandmothers house, and she called a doctor, who set his broken arm and leg, resulting in the appearance of guy we met. Granny was glad to get rid of the bike, and we bought the whole thing, including title, for $25, including the pristine-condition wheel side covers. I bought his share for a differential chain fall (a hoist) and a Sun electronic tachometer. I dragged it up to my Dads garage in Trenton, NJ. OK. Now I had a wrecked motorcycle. What to do! What to do? Did I mention that it was an 800 pound 1947 1300cc (thats 80 cubic inches!) Indian Chief? In dark metallic red? An old Indian ex-dealer in Vineland, NJ, said that he had a front fork assembly, hanging from a nail up in his loft. I went down there and saw it it was brand new! Did I want it? How much? I asked. He said $30 and I said SOLD! Throwing it in the back of my Studebaker, I headed north and homeward on Route 47. I passed a Studebaker dealer and stopped in to see if he had any of the below-the-bumper fog lights I wanted for the front of my car, and saw a strange-looking machine on his used-car lot. It was a British Racing Green Jaguar XK-120 Roadster (ok an Open Two Seater, for all you purists!). I took it out for a test drive, leaving my valuable Studebaker as collateral, and enjoyed the drive, save for a fuel leak that left me stranded a few miles away from the dealership. I had to put a whole TEN CENTS worth of gas into the car in order to get it back! I decided that I liked the concept, but not that particular car (fuel leak, yknow), and started looking for one. (Many years later, I found that the green XK-120 had belonged to one of our now-departed members, George Carr). Scouring the auto ads, I came upon an ad from Mr. Reedman, who you may remember had the worlds largest auto dealership, long before Bruce Toll got involved with it. Built up in Langhorne, PA, across the street from the old Langhorne Speedway, Reedmans had hired the former owner of Trentons Studebaker dealership, Mickey Rohrer, with whom my Dad and I had established a relationship during the fifteen or so years Dad and I owned Studebakers! Mickey showed me the car a black XK-140 convertible (OK a Drop Head Coupe), which I took around Reedmans famous on-site Test Track, sliding some of the corners accidentally in the light rain. I returned to my Studebaker, started up the motor, and moved the car about an inch, then shut it off and returned to Mickey to leave a deposit on the Jag, and headed home. Dad was happy to hear that I wanted to sell my Triumph motorcycle and agreed to help me get back on four wheels The only cars I had owned by then were a mid-fifties Fiat 600, and a 54 and later, a 53 Studebaker. What a warped vehicular upbringing I had! Went back to Reedmans with a loan from Dad and a promise to sell the Triumph (which I did, and paid him back), and returned home with my first Jaguar! Wow! An exotic convertible, with burled wood, real leather, wire wheels, a nice loud exhaust, and it was all mine, for only $500! Nobody in my crowd had ever seen such a machine! Instant Status. I had it parked in front of Dads house in Trenton, when a guy named Joe Zebrowski knocked on the door. He had a black XK-150, with disk wheels, and wanted to know if Id consider selling the wire wheels that were on my XK-140. I asked, How much? and he offered $100, plus his old disk wheels. I said, Sure! I just saved $100 on the purchase price of my car! I now had a $400 Jaguar!!! Neither of us realized what was involved in such a swap! I was working as a co-op student for Western Electric in Princeton, NJ, during one of the Work parts of my Cooperative Education curriculum at Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University), in Philadelphia, and, through a co-worker, Don Sharp, had met Tom Forman, a British expatriathttp://www.paulfredrick.come and my Jaguar guru, up in Flemington, NJ. Tom loaned us his precious hub-removal tool so we could swap the wheels and hubs (and tires), working in the street! Fortunately, the XK-150 had drum brakes, too, or the job would have been beyond us! After a long day, the job was done, and I was $100 richer! Sure learned a lot, too! A girl I was dating at the time, back in 1964, just before I met Diantha, had trouble with her Studebaker one night, and received assistance on the side of the road by a capable and chivalrous gentleman Frank Weikel! After hearing from her what I was driving, he told her that he and a friend Dick OKane, were starting up a Jaguar club, and he told her where and when the first meeting was to be. I went there and met two guys whose somewhat similar names were confused in my mind for years Bob Roggio and Pete Grillo, and their wives, Valerie and Audrey. Frank was a great organizer and Dick had incredible enthusiasm and a good story-telling ability, and I was hooked! I joined that night! Early on, I came to believe in the concept of a parts car, having had a brace each of fiat 600s, Fiat 850 Spyders, English Ford Cortinas, and Studebakers, so when I saw an ad in the New York Times for a 1955 Jaguar XK-140 Drop Head Coupe, I headed up there with my Dad, Uncle Sol,. and Cousin Allan. We found a mustard yellow car which actually ran, and all it cost me was $250! Sure, the engine made a strange noise th-th-th-th and all the gauges but the clock were broken (in true Jaguar fashion, once I fixed all the other instruments, the clock stopped!), but I drove it home! Decided to take it up to Tom Formans shop in Flemington, NJ, to show him what a good deal I had; made it as far as the Flemington Circle, and th-th-th-BANG! Threw a rod! Tom towed me home, and sold me a 3.8 XK-150 FHC rolling chassis with a good block, seats, instruments, and rear fenders, for a couple of hundred bucks! Another hard lesson! Swapped out the block to get my car back on the road, and sold most of the removable bits and pieces, save for the rear axle. What to do with the frame? It was big, heavy, and had absolutely no market value (at the time). I took my trusty torches and cut it up into small garbage-can pieces, and threw it out over the course of the next few months! Being a slightly younger group, as the cars were just a bit more affordable then, and much simpler to work on, our club had a greater emphasis on motion competition, such as quarter-mile, standing-start acceleration trials (or drag racing), Auto-Cross, and Gymkhanas, clue and time-speed-distance rallying (activities which Im glad to see some of our current members, such as Steve Kress, are continuing to this day). We went to join the Empire Division Jaguar Club at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut for a three-day racing and concours weekend twice a year (Diantha once told a prospective employer that she had to have Lime Rock Friday off in the spring and Fall; when asked what she meant, she replied that her husband (that would be me) took their Jaguar to a race track; fortunately, her new boss was British, and fully understood!). We went to auto-cross events at St. Josephs College, the Atco Dragway in Jackson, NJ (two of our members, Norm and Sylvia Grimm, operated the timing equipment there (and may have had a financial interest in it never certain) and got our club exclusive use of the track for drag racing, a gymkhana, and a mini-concours), past-President Dick Michies companys parking lot, the McGuire Air Force Base taxiways (set up by the Flying Burro Sports Car Club, Oldbridge, NJ (a tiny 1/10 mile paved oval, best suited to go-karts, where my XKE was repeatedly creamed by Joe Zebrowskis little Lotus Super-7!). Speaking of my XKE, I was always working on my XK-140, and one year at Lime Rock time, it wasnt running, so Bob Roggio offered me a ride in his light metallic blue XKE FHC. We shared the ride, and while he was driving, I worked the Big Bend corner as part of the safety crew (we had fire extinguishers and caution flags), and I saw something momentous! Seems a fellow in the Empire club was driving his girlfriends brown XKE FHC, and she had just put new Continental radials on the car. He came speeding down the main straight, heading for The Hook (as Big bend was also known a gradually-decreasing radius 200 degree right-hander with two apexes), and he thought that he would slide the corner, braking at the entrance a bit and then putting on the power while turning the steering wheel to the left (reverse lock). He didnt count on the new, sticky radial tires, though, and just steered right off the track! So far, so good, but he then tried to steer his way back onto it, and the outside left front tire dug in to the sand along the edge of the track, and the car flipped over! I was first to him, as he was hanging in the car by his seat belt, and, after helping him out and determining that he wasnt hurt, I boldly asked for salvage rights to the car! Now, his wife wasnt aware that he was up at the track with his girlfriend, so he rapidly agreed! Bob Roggio and I, having been previously inspired by a Roger Penske / Mark Donahue team-up and a movie they made, called Four Hands on the Wheel, decided to team up ourselves and try to but the car from the insurance company. This was the start of Twin Cam Racing Associates, later to become Twin Cam, Inc. I placed a sealed bid of $1051.53, and was selected Lucky High Bidder by less than 50 cents! Using Bobs car as a model, I designed and built a tow-bar for an XKE that fastened to the front torsion bar bolts, completely eliminating the flimsy bumper and bonnet concerns (didnt know about tow dollies then) and dragged it home with Dads 55 Studebaker. We cut the top off and banged out the bumper and went on a few gymkhanas together. Then the 4.2 liter block from Dianthas 66 Mark 10 became available (threw another rod, trying to make it back to the garage before the engine came apart almost made it AAA towed me the last mile and a half! Low-speed damage Bob Puglisi just resleeved it)) and we determined to make a Corvette Killer! 11:1 compression pistons, 40 thousandths overbore, Isky XM3 full-race cams, custom heavy-duty anti-sway bars, front and rear, wide wheels and tires 9took off the wire wheel hums and put on 3.8S Mark II spindles, wide Chevy Monte Carlo disk wheels, vented the rear brakes ala Jaguars XKE Competition Manual, fitted a roll bar and a fiberglass bonnet (moving the center-of-mass back about a foot, thus almost completely neutralizing the car and improving the handling), fitting 3.8 XKE seats for better back support and positioning (sacrificed the headrests, though), exchanging the remnants of the chopped FHC tub for a black OTS one from Angelos in Trenton, NJ., etc., etc., etc.! Bob and I did most of the work, to the accompaniment of the Iron Butterflys In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (wore out two 8-track tapes) and a pitcher of Black Russians, with occasional assistance from Paul Toth, a kid (at the time) who lived down the block from my folks place, and Kevin Murray, and Jerry King, who had a red Alfa Romeo Guiletta Spyder with a twin-cam engine, so we included him in our group. I still remember working with Bob he was quick and capable, but fastidious, always with a cleaning rag in hand, while I worked like a classic grease monkey, needing major degreasing at the end of the day before heading out to DeLorenzos for a tomato pie, while Bob was ready to get out of his coveralls and head out to dinner at a fine restaurant with his wife Valerie. I had picked up the fiberglass bonnet at Stuckers in Staten Island, NY, during one of my monthly scavenging trips there Stuckers apparently had first dibs on all NYC wrecked Jaguars, and I went up there almost monthly to see what was new that I needed or wanted for my cars once I bought an empty spotted can of Jaguar Malt Liquor, found in the trunk of a 3.8 sedan, for five cents! Anyway, I had the XKE that day, and saw this ungainly fiberglass thing; bought it on the spot for $250, I think. Now, how to transport it? I had an XKE OTS, remember? I put it on the back of the car, facing backwards, positioned so that the rear view mirror looked out through the oval hole in the front, and duct-taped the whole thing in place! Shot down the NJ Turnpike like a Push-Me-Pull-You! We put it on the car the next weekend, and Jerry applied Bondo with a paintbrush to fix the right side between the front wheel arch and the back of the bonnet BAD idea! Much too thick! We had just a day to get it painted for a competition the next weekend, so we headed to the local Earl Scheibs, who, at that time, would Paint any car for only $12.95! One catch there were only four colors available at that low price, and Bob and I were operating on a shoestring budget! The colors were Red, White, Black, and are you ready for this? Aqua! Guess what we chose? Thats why we named the car The Turquoise Terror! Looked like a giant Hot Wheels toy! Years later, at a Chicago Jaguar Associates Group club meeting, we had Bob Tullius of Group 44 Racing, as a guest speaker, and, afterward I asked him for an autograph. He asked who to dedicate it to, and I told him my name. Didnt you used to race a turquoise XKE at Lime Rock? he asked? Made my day! The car was very quick, both on the track and on the strip. At Atco, as we were strictly a club event, we had no legal need for scatter shields, and I turned a 12.5 second quarter-mile! I was using Goodyear Blue Streak Sports Car Special racing tires which I had bought from Roger Penskes shop on Chestnut Street in West Philly used tires that mark Donahue had raced on! 9.20s in the front and 10 hundreds in the rear! LOTS of rubber! Tom Forman had brought his red ex-Walt Hansgen D-Type down to Atco one time, and I was fortunate enough to drive it, about 10 feet, and backwards, to reposition it for a picture, but I drove it! Tom was actively competing with the car in SCCA C-Production then, running against 10-year newer cars, and he wanted something faster. Herb Wetson, the NYC 15 cent hamburger king (who raced a Porsche 911 with a big 15 and a little cent mark on it), had a rear-engine Cooper Monaco (engine by Joe Huffacher) for sale, and Tom had a significant non-refundable deposit on it. He was about $3000 short, and had only three days to raise the money. Herb offered to accept the D-Type for the difference, and I pestered my Dad for three days for 3 grand! Dad was a mechanical engineer at DeLavel Steam Turbine in Trenton, and I was a kid in college NO WAY! Sadly, I accompanied Tom to New York with the D-Type, and we retrieved the Cooper (with which he was moderately successful and semi-satisfied). Herb took out a small crease in the right front wing, repainted the red car British Racing Green, and sold it in 2 weeks for $8000, to Paul Parry's grandmother, who bought it for him (MY grandmother had previously ALSO bought me a Jaguar a blue XK-120 FHC, but it was only about 12 inches long!). Paul had the misfortune to die before he could really enjoy the car, and it sat in a barn for about 30 years, earning a reputation in the literature as the Lost D-Type it was (and is) XKD-537, and it was never lost I knew where it was all the time! It was unearthed a few years ago, made all the Jaguar publications, and was sold for a ridiculously-high price could have been mine for $3000! Another lost opportunity! Rallyes one of our former members was Frank Bishop He was English, a mechanical engineer, and kept his gold 3.8S Sedan in immaculate condition, both mechanically and cosmetically. He followed the owners manual completely, from checking the oil daily, the air in his tires weekly, decoking the engine every 50,000 miles or so, etc. His car had more than a quarter of a million miles on it when I moved away from the Delaware Valley for a while. He used to do time-speed-distance rallyes with a wind-up Rolls Royce clock! I was a rally master in 1969 for our Vacation Valley Frustration Rallye a tour from Trenton, NJ, to the Vacation Valley resort up near the Delaware Valley Water Gap. Cars were started a minute apart and were to follow clues concerning the route they were to take no timing, other than the starting time. A clue rallye fun and low-pressure (or so I thought). At that time, I was recovering from some shoulder surgery, had my arm in a sling, and couldnt drive. Diantha and I had run the course at least twice, so I knew the clues were all correct and not too obtuse. I was young, foolish, and over-confident I didnt have a sweep car to precede the rallye pack, just in case! Silly me! Actually, unbeknownst to any of us, two events conspired against us the graduating Class of 69 had been adopting wild NJ Route 69 road signs, and, in response to that, the NJ Highway Department had changed the number of that route to Route 31, and was installing new signs on the day of the rallye! In fact, as the rallye route wound back and forth across Route 69, the sign crew managed to stay ahead of the rallye cars as they headed north from Trenton! Of course, we didnt know anything about this at the time! After the last car was started, Diantha and I headed up Route 69 toward Vacation Valley. When we got to the Flemington Circle, we found seven Jaguars circling, looking for Route 69 North signs, which had just been changed to Route 31 North signs! By then I knew what had happened, and corrected their directions. And those of the following cars. On another rallye, Harry Ussery drove his red XKE OTS up onto someones lawn when the road ended in a Tee, and he kept asking his wife, Olive, Which way do I turn, left or right?, and she kept saying This Way! - a bit of lack of communication, there. Harry played the Pogo Stick (cymbals, kazoo, one-string slap bass, washboard, etc.) in the DVJCs Jug Band, along with Frank Weikel on piano, Bob Roggio on mandolin, Dick OKane on banjo, and Norm Grimm and me on guitars. Our fun wasnt all about cars, just mostly! We also had some great club parties! Norm and Sylvia Grimm hosted several, first at their over-the-garage apartment and later in a house in the woods with a bomb shelter turned wine cellar! I hosted a couple, as did other club members over the years. Dick OKane started it, with one at his Society Hill townhouse (a parking nightmare) where we were introduced to Fish House Punch (if I remember rightly, every couple had to bring a pint of vanilla ice cream, a pint of bourbon, and a cup of sugar; I think Dick added some seltzer and nutmeg). Another party introduced Jaguar Juice (a gallon of vodka and a gallon of maraschino cherries mix and let stand for, say 10 minutes! The cherries were delicious!). Do you see a theme here? Drinking and driving? We kidded about it then, and were very lucky! Such sayings as Gasoline and alcohol dont mix, so drink first, THEN drive! and When youre driving, drink. Drive with confidence! I remember creeping home on the shoulder of the NJ Turnpike at 5 miles per hour in first gear seemed like a good idea at the time (I did it again a few years later when half of my XKE V12 FHC fuel pump shorted out, but thats another story, for another time!). Over the years, Ive owned more than fifty Jaguars, from Mark V through XKR, in various states of repair and disrepair, and I have built a couple of semi-serious concours competitors a burgundy XK-140 DHC and a metallic green XKE OTS, but my major love is driving the cars! Diantha and I are now driving an XKR Convertible. Every Jaguar I come across has a convoluted story! My younger daughter was delivering my third grandchild a couple of years ago, and was being very well-taken-care of at her hospital up in Flemington, NJ. An easel in the hospital lobby indicated that they were raffling off a new Harley Davidson motorcycle, with tickets being just $15 each, with a maximum of 10,000 being sold. Good odds and it was a way to say thanks to the hospital folks, so I took home a flyer. I was surprised to find that I had taken the wrong piece of paper the one I had was a raffle for a car a BMW Z4 convertible and tickets were a bit steeper - $100 each, with a maximum of 1000 to be sold. After some soul-searching, and a very animated discussion with Diantha, I sent in a check and considered it to be just a donation to the hospital. A few months later I received what I first thought was a call from Allan Funt, of Candid Camera! Mr. Schear, we picked your ticket, and you have won the BMW Z4! Yeah, right! She was insistent, though, and a few days later I went to pick up my new car! Had to pay Uncle Sam 20% of the fair market value up front as taxes on the value received, but I essentially, had a new car for next to nothing! 2.5 liter engine, 5-speed manual transmission, run-flat tires (no room for a spare, anyway!), and custom metallic burgundy paint. Nice car! We drive around in it, somewhat enthusiastically, for about three days, and realized that we just dont fold up that much any more! Put an ad on eBay, but sold it locally through the Inquirer. Now, what? Diantha asked me what I wanted to replace it with, and I was stuck She had a Buick which I had purchased on eBay, and I was driving her old GMC Yukon SUV. Whats out there thats fun to drive thats affordable? My 51 XK-120 OTS and 65 XKE OTS were both inoperative, and had been so for decades, and it had become embarrassing to always show up at DVJC meetings with a dollar for the Kitty box. Heck! In prior years, I came to meetings with an XK-140 OTS running on 4 cylinders, and once towed a Jaguar to a club meeting, just to save a quarter (the Kitty has gone up over the course of time, too!). Its time for another Jaguar, I said, and contacted Mike, a vehicle buying agent my brother-in-law used to locate and acquire his exotic cars (he had a Viper at the time). I decided on the XKR, as it had a fine engine, was available as a convertible, and set a cutoff of no older than 2003, so as not to have the Nikosil engine worries. This was in late 2004. Mike called me a few months later and said, Larry, You just bought a car! Great! I said. WHAT is it and WHERE is it? He said it was a silver 2003 XKR, with very low mileage, and it was in Atlanta, GA, at the Mannheim Auction grounds. I called American Express Concierge and got a cheap one-way ticket to Atlanta (I was working in Washington, DC, at the time), and flew down the next night. Arriving after dark in Atlanta, I took a cab to the auction grounds and picked up my info packet, Bill of Sale, and key. In a light rain, I found it on an upper parking lot, got in, started it up, adjusted the mirrors, and headed out the gate towards home! Though I had maps with me, I decided to use the Navigation System, and drove for two hours through the increasing rain to Chattanooga, TN, where I spent the night in a Motel 6, enjoying the irony! The next day, I finished the trip home, achieving a surprising 25 mpg at Interstate highway speeds. I was further surprised when the Navigation System took me right to my driveway, even telling me what side of the street it was on! The cars been trouble-free ever since that Ford Systems Design and Quality Control have really made quite a positive difference in our cars! I remember when we all lived for those two days a year when nothing went wrong! Weve come a long way! Let me just leave you with a few names and cars from years gone by more than forty of them see how many you remember! Someday YOULL be on someones good list, too! * Bob (Gunny) and Betty Metcalf (green XKE OTS that shined as only a Marine can shine it!), * Dick Michie (green XKE OTS), * Tom and Judy and, later, Cynthia Crawford (white XK-120 OTS and blue/Silver Mark V), * Bob and Valerie Roggio (blue XKE FHC and blue/silver Mark 10), * Pete and Audrey Grillo (burgundy XKE OTS flipped once at Lime Rock; petite Audrey always out-dragged Pete by a few hundredths of a second), * Ed and Mary Gutgesell (black XK-150 FHC), * Bob and Blanche Puglisi (gold XKE FHC, raced at Lime Rock and Atco with a rubber chicken taped on top!), * Irv and Lillian Goll (white 3.8 XKE FHC, driven at Lime Rock as enthusiastically as he wanted to), * Sid and June Levin (red XK-140 OTS), * Sids protg and electronics repairman Gene Kohler (school bus yellow XKE), * Norm and Sylvia Grimm (our club Atco Connection, with a primrose (yellow) XKE OTS), * Bart Kaminski (green XKE FHC), * Andy Burgoos (blue XKE FHC), * Kevin and Mary Murray (green XK-150 DHC (taken over the coals by a now out of business unscrupulous Cherry Hill Jaguar dealership, who turned an oil change into a complete engine disassembly Kevins Dad got it straightened out), * Mike Kliger (primrose XKE OTS, which I once worked on to buy a dining room set), * Paul Toth (my and Bob Puglisis protg, with a burgundy XK-140 DHC which survived a serious altercation with a deer), * George and Doris Carr (green XK-120 OTS the car that got me started with Jaguars in the first place!), * Dr. John Spriggs (white XKE FHC I found and fixed a broken distributor low-tension wire for him at a New Hope Auto Show; in return he allowed me to purchase from him a set of five brand-new 15 XKE wire wheels for a pittance), * Ellis and Dorothy Diament (a sedan, I think), * Frank and Grace Weikel (grey 3.8 Mark II), * Dick and Sydney OKane (red 3.8 XKE OTS and red 3.8 Mark 10), * Frank Bishop (gold 3.8S sedan), * Jim Shields (I dont know what you drove before my old XK-140 DHC, Jim), * Tom Forman (red XKD and black XKE FHC), * Martin Sternberg and Joseph Von Furshing (an immaculate Mark IX), * Marty Thiel (a Philly fireman with a white XKE OTS and a Cottswold Blue MK VII, both immaculate), * John Murphy (and his brother Ed, who seriously raced a red XK-120 DHC), * Jack and Bernice Sanft (the Tie Man, who drove a variety of Jaguar sedans, and a Daimler), * Kurt and Pat Rappold (I dont know what you drove then Kurt; I remember I sold you an XK-120 FHC hulk once), * and an occasional visitor from the Empire Club, Harry Sunshine, their eternal President, who always drove a Facel Vega! I know there were, and are, others, and some of you are here today, and I apologize if I missed you, but these were the folks who made a major impression on me back then, and I didnt want to muddy my memory by digging out all the old Scratching Post monthlies (that was our club House Organ before The Jaguars Purr)! As you might surmise, I can go on and on and on! Thanks for tolerating a recovering curmudgeon! Future topics * Bob Roggio and me at Atco drag racing on foot! * Optimizing the suspension for Lime Rock (in the rain, under a tin shed in the Pacific islands during a WWII rain squall) * Popular Science Monthly magazine and Gus Wilsons Hints From the Model Garage * My first competition at Lime Rock and the following concours Beauty Is As Beauty Does Dad * A big dog in open XK-140 DHC on upstate NY rallye * Aluminum XK-120 from West Islip, LI