New Guy here, Just got killer news

[CraigC]

Well, yesterday in the 100M on E-bay thread I was referred to as the "new voice". Figured I ought to introduce my self.

My name is Craig Clifton and I've been around Healeys since my dad bought what is now mine back in 1963. Coolest car on our street at the time. I loved every opportunity I got to go for a ride. Heck, I even loved the exhaust smell when he would start it up. The car became mine in 1971 after my dad lost enthusiasm in finishing the rocker panel/rear dogleg repair project. Got it running in time for my senior year of high school in 1972 and used it as my daily driver until about 1981. It was hit while parked in front of my house in 1982. Got most of the damaged repaired and then put it in storage for 5 years until I moved in 1990. Car has been kept in running condition since then but rarely used. Decided to get back into the project and that is what led me to join this forum. I joined "Pacific Centre" in '73 or '74 and have been a member ever since. As such, there are some familiar names here, most notably Editor Reid.

As for my killer news.......Back when I was young, I had the task of washing and drying the louvered hood of the white 1956 100 that my dad had brought home. My little fingers fit where his couldn't. Once, I even had to slither underneath and install a new clutch relay rod. When I started working on it in 1971, he pointed out the numerous differences between this car and a standard 100. He had always left me with the impression that he thought this car had been dealer modified to 100M specs. My Heritage certificate arrived today, and it states that it was shipped with a louvered hood and is, indeed, a factory built 100M. I'm going to have to treat it with more respect now!

 

[dougie]

Craig -

What great news to hear...take good care of her and hopefully enjoy many happy miles. Oh, and we all love pictures.

 

[HealeyRick]

Great news, Craig. Even better that it was your Dad's car. Two M's "found" in one week, wow.

 

[simon1966]

Keep that grin on your face. I suspect that almost 100% of the forum members have dreamed of this fantasy!

 

[CLEAH]

That's great to hear, Craig. Great story and congratulations on the news! I'm the one who called you a "new voice" because you appeared on the scene and spoke clearly and convincingly. Glad you did, and good to have you on the forum!

 

[John Turney]

Congratulations, Craig!

 

[stretchit2]

Craig,

Send Pictures - congratulations -

Jeff

 

[WaltCasten]

Craig,

Very cool. We have pretty similar stories, although the dates are a little different .

I also have a 100 that was previously owned by my father and was a father and son project. He purchased it in the late 70's/early 80's with a freshly rebuilt engine but in need of a pretty lengthy list of little things. With the help of a good friend Healey expert, we thrashed on it for a month or two of evenings and weekends to get it drivable/reliable and later had it painted at my Uncle's body shop in Chicago.

My dad was a busy guy who took his career seriously so he wasn't around much making the time we got to spend working on and riding in the Healey very special.

Although he wasn't the original owner, it was his car, now it is my car, and someday will be my daughter's car.

Later,
Walt

 

[CraigC]

I'll try and get some pics up fairly soon. Most of what I have is from the late 70's. Going to have to dig them up and scan them first. Currently, it is not terribly photogenic. Sadly, the only picture of the car from my dad's time was lost in 1974.

Also in 1974, as the result of my own youthful stupidity, the hood suffered pretty serious damage. When I had the car painted in 1976, the body man took some liberties in how he separated the skin from the frame to make the needed repairs. While I don't recall ever noticing the body number stamped on the hood prior to that, turns out it was there. Too bad he ground away one number and drilled a hole for a pop rivet through the last which was an "8". I just spent an hour carefully excavating through paint and filler and removing two rivets. Three of the five #'s are there although faint. Should have done that years ago!

Walt, our stories are actually even more similar. My dad worked swing shift at the local NBC affiliate as a broadcast engineer. I only saw him on weekends unless I made it home from school in time to see him leave for work.

John, I got your PM. I've checked out the website before and will eventually join. Are there many of the old Pacific Centre crowd still around?

My favorite trip in the Healey, and I had some notable ones, was a trip from San Francisco to Long Beach just after he bought it. We went to see my grandmother and show her his new toy. It was "Indian Summer" here in California so the weather was beautiful and warm. Top down all weekend. Skipped school on Friday for the trip south. Saturday, we spent a couple hours cruising around with my grandmother which left me sitting on the "hump" as we called the upholstered cushion on the driveshaft tunnel. (Imagine trying to get away with that today!). Saturday night we hit a local drive-in that was packed with cool cars. Sunday it was back on the road home with a bag lunch and a couple sodas. Great fun!

 

[John Turney]

... John, I got your PM. I've checked out the website before and will eventually join. Are there many of the old Pacific Centre crowd still around? ...

Yep, and I'm one of them.

 

[judow]

Congratulations Craig! When you got the certificate did you have to read to the bottom when it was clearly marked at the top. I ask that because I read the entire certificate and didn't even notice the heading. Added to that I didn't know what a 100M was. I did however quickly learn how special my Healey was/is. I know you will look at your Healey a liitle differently now. Be sure and put her on both Registries. :banana:

 

[CraigC]

Yep, I have to admit I scrolled all the way to lines 11 and 12 for the "louvered bonnet" and 'factory built 100M" notations. I went right past line 1 stating "Austin Healey 100 'M' ". Since I had already put it away, I probably wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't mentioned it.

 

[pan]

Great news! Congratulations Craig. Here in Queensland we swapped magazines with the Pacific Centre and I have a small collection of your old mags.
Alwyn

 

[Editor_Reid]

I joined "Pacific Centre" in '73 or '74 and have been a member ever since. As such, there are some familiar names here, most notably Editor Reid.

Big congrats on the 100M!

I beat you into the Pacific Centre, but only by a year or two. There are only two of the original officers around that I know of. Hank Leach lives on the Oregon coast and shows up for the Portland All British Field Meet each Labor Day, and George Kraus (an early editor of Healey Highlights) lives here in the Portland area and, like me, is a board member of the local chapter of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club. He's got a fabulous concours Giulietta Spider and he's well known for outstanding vintage motorcycle restoration. Stu Johnson, Pacific Centre prez about 1983-84, is still alive and kicking, and still lives in Redwood City in the same house, but he sold his Healey several years ago. That's the only active members - besides me - that I remember from the 70s and early 80s. Many are gone (as in permanently gone), and some went on to other interests and lost contact.

After stints as Healey Highlights/Austin-Healey Magazine editor 1984-88 and again 2002-2005, and as Pacific Centre (now of course Austin-Healey Club USA since 1997) president 1997-2002 (yes, my skin is pretty thick by now), I've been editor of the Austin-Healey Club of America's mag for over nine years, 2006 to the present. It's a good gig. I have 40 pages to publish each month! I hope you'll join and give it a try. Every club in North America - with the sole exceptions of the Sports & Touring Club and the AH Owners Association of British Columbia - is now a chapter of the AHCA.

Welcome to the forum. I'm the longest-serving moderator on the British Car Forum, having been signed up by "Basil" (the site owner/operator/admin) a few months after its launch in 2000, I believe it was. (My signature shows January 2002 as my join date, but the date was reset when I changed handles; I've been a member here longer than that.)

Healey on brother!

 

[CraigC]

Reid,

Thanks for the reply. I certainly remember Hank Leach's name and George Kraus sounds familiar, but with all the years that have passed I doubt I'd recognize either of them.

Stu Johnson is one of the members I have often wondered about. I met Stu during the drive to Eugene in 1977. He was one of the first members that I got to know fairly well. While travelling with a group of about 10 cars that met up off of 1-80 in the general vicinity of Len Hartnett's hometown, I became tired of the gas-crisis inspired, Federally mandated 55 mph speed limit. I took off ahead of the group at a more comfortable 70 mph. It wasn't too long before I saw the glint of sunlight reflecting off the grille of Stu's 3000 as he came up behind me. We stopped somewhere near Shasta for lunch and swapped life and Healey stories. Being only 21 at the time, mine were much shorter. The second picture below was taken by Stu during that drive. Good to hear he is still alive and kicking.

Another ex-president I have often wondered about is Kevin Faughnan(sp?). I worked at a service station in their neighborhood while I was in school in 1979. I will never forget the afternoon, a few days prior to the 1979 meet in Bend, when they pulled in with 6 or 7 other Healeys to gas up before hitting the road north. My car was down as a result of a catastrophic overdrive failure and I had not planned to go to Bend. The sound of all those Healeys pulling out of the station was too much for me. I made a few phone calls to line up the needed parts, picked them up on my way home from work and stayed up all night rebuilding and reinstalling the OD. Road test was my drive to school on Friday. That was followed by work in the afternoon and a softball game that evening. It was probably 11pm before I was on the road. Turned out to be a good weekend, although the weather was not the best.

Anyway, here a few old pics that I recently scanned. All pics are from 1977. The first is a pic my car in the Oakland, Ca. hills.


This pic was taken by Stu Johnson on the way to Eugene


This is a pic of my car , my sister and, of course Donald Healey


This is Kevin Faughnan and his wife from the same trip.

Another pic from Eugene. From right to left, Kevin's wife(Agnes?), DMH, Kevin, Lou Bush(Buch?)

 

[HealeyRick]

That picture of DMH made me laugh. I think there are more pictures of him at Healey meets standing next to attractive young ladies than next to his cars.

 

[CraigC]

Rick, you're probably right. Before I asked if he would take a pic with me and my car, I was pretty sure he was going to suggest the picture that ended up being taken.

 

[ghosteh]

Craig, that's a very neat discovery! You've just won the Healey lottery!

When I received my heritage certificate, all I learned was that my car was originally blue. lol!

 

[Editor_Reid]

Craig,

PM me if you want Stu Johnson's email. I haven't seen him in probably 8-10 years, but we still occasionally exchange emails - usually just humor or current events - and we talked on the phone once a year or so ago. He's still married to Doris and still in the same house in Redwood City on Seminole Way.

Kevin Faughnan's star shown brightly for a few years as a very active enthusiast, but then he dropped out of Healeys altogether. I think that was about the late seventies. I might be able to get you in touch through Mike Meindorfer, but it's been a long time so I underline "might."

Some other early personalities from Pacific Centre history:

Rusty Hanewacker dropped out a long time ago. No idea where he is or if he is.

Bruce Erfer sold his wire wheel business for considerable $$$ and moved to Hawaii and became a golf pro. Still has a Healey, but obviously never (with one exception last year) shows up for Healey club stuff.

Ginnie Klein is long deceased.

Loren Cross is also no longer with us, but his son is a very active enthusiast.

Chuck Gowan, like Hank Leach, moved here to Oregon and used to show up very occasionally at Oregon club events. I haven't seen him in at least a few years now. Not sure of his status, but let's note that like the rest of us, he isn't getting any younger.

Lou Buch disappeared a long time ago.

Likewise Keith Rishell dropped out decades ago.

That covers a lot of the 1970s Pacific Centre people.

Although I joined in 1972 - or was it late 1971? - I didn't become active until 1984 when I was an answer to a Stu Johnson prayer and took over editorship of Healey Highlights from him. First of all I was in the Army and moving every two or three years, if not more often with shorter schools and such, and it was only in 1984 when I lived in Monterey that I had the proximity and time to become active (I was attending the US Naval Postgraduate School - yes, a few Army types attend the Navy's postgrad school - and obviously didn't apply myself as much as I perhaps should have since I had lots of time for car club stuff, but I DID graduate, so I guess that could be defined as applying myself adequately.)

Fun to recall those days. Not so fun to note how many of the old gang are either gone or they dropped out of Healeys and their whereabouts are unknown.

You'll probably like the center spread of the March issue of HEALEY MARQUE magazine. It's a photo feature of DMH at the 1980 Conclave in Toronto, and the photos look similar to the ones you posted here. I'd be happy to print yours and more like them if you have more.