Our childhood/teen experiences sure do shape our automobile tastes. I too drove the family car - a full size van. I figure I save half the cost of the car in gas alone and the insurance is very reasonable. I figured that I spend more on coffee than I do for the Spit (This was my reasoning anyway - we don't add in parts cost.)
Ken -----Original Message----- From: Michael Hargreave Mawson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: NEW TOPIC - Why did you buy your Spit? In article <B4B2CBE518F8EB46A7286FFD05AF9ACDB6AE4C@kent2kexchange>, "St.John, Kenneth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >Driving to work today in the sun I was thinking about my Spitfire and MGs >and why we are attracted to one car or another and why. >I'm curious as to how others got bit! Excellent question -and hopefully the start of a fascinating thread. My Story ^^^^^^^^ My story starts in about 1977. A friend of mine at school was absolutely fanatically obsessed with Spitfires. Me, I thought the lines were unappealing, and that the Spit looked like an insect, with head/thorax/abdomen - yuck! We were both ten years old at the time. By the time we were twelve, Triumph had announced that the Spitfire was to be discontinued. My friend was distraught, and begged and pleaded with his father to buy him one to put in store until he could drive it. Eventually his father (who obviously earned far too much money) agreed, and, at the age of twelve-and-a-half, my best friend, David Jenkyn, became the owner of one of the last 1500s ever sold. I thought this was pretty cool. Shimmy forward twenty-one years, and you find a different Mike. A Mike who appreciated the Michelotti design, and who sneered at the boring lines of MGs and BMW Z3s. A Mike who had experienced classic British motoring with the likes of Morris Minor PWR 920E and Sunbeam Stiletto JGO 212K (both of which he reluctantly parted with many years before). Mike was now married with a child, and his wife had just gone out and bought a brand new "family car". Well, hey! *I* didn't need to provide the "family car" anymore - I could buy something I actually liked, rather than something "practical". I picked up a copy of "North Thames Auto-Trader" and started looking through the "Classics" section. Guess what? The cheapest car in there was also the one nearest to me, and it was a Spitfire 1500. The rest, as they say, is history... ATB -- Mike Ellie - 1963 White Herald 1200 Convertible GA125624 CV Carly - 1977 Inca Yellow Spitfire 1500 FM105671 /// [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list /// Send admin requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool /// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive /// Send list postings to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// Edit your replies! If they include this trailer, they will NOT be sent.
