Coldplugs - Alfa through OSCA

Starting in the late fifties and until about 1965, we rented a garage in Connecticut and bought, restored, repaired, drove, and sold quite a few very interesting cars. "We" is me and my father. In the earlier years, I mostly held a flashlight while he worked. As I got a bit older, I managed to get my hands dirty, too. We did some pretty awful things to some cars that would be highly valued today - remember that, at the time, they were just old cars that no one else wanted. We had no electricity or heat, so almost everything was done by hand. Thanks Dad.

1957 Alfa Romeo Giulietta #AR1495-00937
We agreed to help a local shop fix an engine problem but really liked the car so we ended up buying it. We had to sell the TD, our first car, to fund it. The engine problem turned out to be a burned exhaust value. The car had another problem though. At first glance, it looked ok but the right front fender had been badly repaired at some time. It had the wrong shape - you can see here that the right headlight is higher than the left and the fender contour is way off. This picture was taken after the initial attack with files and body hammers.	This was taken before the body work was done. The plate over the radio opening was not original and was made with a piece of sheet metal and a couple of key fobs.
	Austin Healey BN-1 #151707
This was after the repair job. We replaced the original steering wheel with (I think) a Nardi wheel and the seats were re-done in red vinyl with black inserts. A bit garish but it actually looked ok.	Our BN1 Austin Healey. Four cylinders, three speed with overdrive. We had new rear springs made for it which were pretty stiff but it was a nice car to drive. I learned to drive in it. It was a good car but seemed pretty crude compared to the Alfa. I wasn't allowed to drive the Alfa for some reason and had to suffer with this... poor deprived child, it seems today. We bought it for $486.00 in December of 1960.
1958 Berkeley 328cc
This was my first Berkeley. The engine, a mighty two cylinder Excelsior "Talisman Twin" of 328cc, is on the floor near the left front wheel. The shiny silver thing above the right headlight is the bell housing of a Crosley 4 cylinder engine that I thought might fit into the Berkeley. My plan was to try to fit it in sideways, like a Mini. I finally gave up that idea in favor of installing a Harley Davidson engine from a KHK motorcycle. Never did that either.	The interior of the 2 cyl Berkeley. Pretty basic, but an amazing amount of room. It had a speedometer, fuel gauge, and ammeter. You can just about see the shift gate, which was pertty much a straight line fore and aft.

The Berkeley again, with a better shot of the engine next to it. The seat is from the OSCA. The Berk was so light that you could easily pick the rear end up. It had a swing axle rear suspension which is obvious here from the camber angle of the rear wheel. [We eventually sold this car to my uncle, who used it for commuting into the city for a while. Brave man, my uncle.]	The engine compartment (no, the engine isn't in there). You can see the chain driven differential and the two Amal carbs. These cars were of fiberglass monocoque construction with some metal stiffeners - you can see a stamped subframe under the diff and some of the sheet metal forming the wheelwells.
1957 BMW 507 #7006 (Probably incorrect)
This was taken not long after we bought the car (usually the whitewalls were the first things to go). A poor picture but I don't have very many of this car.	BMW with the hard top removed. The Corvette mufflers are installed here but no tailpipes are fitted yet. At one point, we needed an exterior door handle and thought we'd never find one. One phone call to the distributor in New York and we had one in two days for $50! Can't complain about that. Probably taken in 1964. [This car was a cop magnet.]

BMW interior. The button in the center of the steering wheel flashed the headlights, while the "horn ring" did what the name implies. What appears to be signal light stalk on the wrong side of the steering column is indeed the signal light stalk. The dashboard was made of - you guessed it - aluminum. I think it was cast. The car had a four speed ZF transmission and was really a pleasure to drive. We put a lot of miles on it.	It had a removable (aluminum) hard top. Eventually, I think my father swapped it for a lathe. If I owned it today I could swap it for a summer house. [My dog was not as fat as she looks here.]

Do you believe this? Just an old car then. Probably 1967. [The winter of the spun bearing. Don't ask....]
1958 Corvette #J58S104439 This was my first American car (purchased for $1489.00 in May of 1964). '58's didn't handle real well out of the box and I spent a lot of time working on that, ending up with standard springs, very heavy shocks, and Goodyear Blue Streak tires that a friend gave me after he wore them out racing. These were bad street tires but did help the handling. I also used sintered iron brake linings which worked well once warmed up. The problem then became fuel starvation in corners, hence the fuel injection.
	Since all '58 Corvettes look pretty much the same, I figured I'd show the engine instead of the whole car. When I bought it, the car had two four barrel Carter carbs and hydraulic lifters. One of our local drag racing gurus did rings and bearings for me (Charged $75 - the crook) and I later put an 097 "Duntov" camshaft and solid lifters in. I also added an aluminum radiator and viscous drive fan. The car still has the two four barrels in this picture.

The fuelie unit came from a '57 and wasn't the best, but power wasn't a problem. The fuel line arrangement looks strange because I had temporarily installed a fuel mileage meter we found - the sender is that black thing ahead of the valve cover. The only time it registered anything at all was down hill, foot off the gas.	The left side. I think the car had a dual point distributor at this point. It ran well with the fuel injection, but was hard starting when the engine was hot. Eventually, I put a single Holley four barrel on. That was probably the best overall arrangement. In the end, I just couldn't afford to keep the car and sold it because I owed tuition for school.
Jaguar - XK140MC (#S814183)
My first real car, a 1955 XK140 Jaguar. It was in even worse shape than it looks here. I never knew a car could rust like that. The battery (I converted it to a single 12 volt) was behind the left front wheel and I had to reinforce it because it tried to fall into the road. The car went well, though. After the starter jammed for the umpteenth time I sold it back to the "friend" I bought it from - he scrapped most of it but put the engine in an old Ford pickup truck he had.	A poor shot of the 140's interior showing the chromed turn signal lever front and center. It cancelled automatically using a time delay based on friction and a self centering spring. Note the two generously sized ash trays - and the 30 amp fuse laying on top of the dash.
Jaguar XK150 (#S83403060N)
Later on, I bought this XK150 for six or seven hundred dollars. This car was amazing - it always started (well, once it didn't) and the worst problem was a worn throttle linkage where a ball would pop out of a socket if it was floored. This made for some interesting driving challenges for a while. I think I sold this in 1967 - it was the last interesting car I had for a while. Its original owner bought it in November, 1957 in New Jersey.	The XK150 interior. It had a leather padded dash rather than wood like the 140 coupe. The only modification I made to the 150 that I can remember was replacing the exhaust system with an Abarth when the stock system started to go.

XK150 3.4 liter engine. Note that the air cleaner seems to be missing here. It must have been Uni-Syn time again.	Getting ready to check the valve clearance and praying they don't need adjustment.
Bug Wasp (Scorpion?)
My 1961 or 62 kart made by Bug Engineering in California with a McCulloch MC10 chainsaw engine. The engine was 5.3 cubic inches and produced around 10 horsepower. It revved to about 12000 rpm. The rear axle was "live" meaning that the wheels were rigidly connected to each other and it had a quick change ratio. The gear ratio could be changed in about 10 minutes since the sprocket was split and could be removed without removing the axle. Gear ratio here was 9 to 1. No transmission, no clutch.	The kart with two engines fitted. You can see the single hydraulic disk brake (on the left) that was supposedly adapted from a helicopter rotor. The exhaust system on the seat was from a Triumph motorcycle, not the kart.
Lotus Eleven Series 2 #324
The interior of the Lotus Eleven (Serial #324). This car was different from the other Elevens in the area which made me curious as to why. I wrote to Lotus and received a letter saying that it had been a team car (#62) at LeMans in 1957. I have since been told that it was probably brought to the US shortly after the race by Jay Chamberlain, who was the west coast distributor. Before we bought it (for about $1000) someone had painted it red with a black stripe and put "footprints" all over it. I presume it was pretty original since it had only been a few years since it had been a factory race car although I doubt that Lotus raced it with an American Sun tachometer.	The Lotus engine, an 1100cc Coventry Climax with two Webers. It ran well, although it was a bit fussy about spark plugs. It would foul cold plugs very quickly at or near idle but ran poorly on anything approaching normal plugs at higher revs. The Michelins were very narrow by today's standards.

Talk about variety! The Lotus, the 500cc Berkeley, and my cousin's 1962 Chevrolet convertible. The race numbers on the Berkeley were bogus - they were stick on numbers I had pulled off the Lotus and put on the Berkeley for no particular reason.	These are pictures of a model of the Lotus in its LeMans paint scheme. I'm surprised at the accuracy.

A very poor quality picture taken the day we brought it home. It makes the car look far worse than it was. The trailer weighed more than the car.	No Lotus Eleven would look this shabby for long today. When this picture was taken, it was just an obsolete racing car, with very little value.
1953 MG TD #29850
This is our first British car, a 1953 MG TD. We bought it in 1959 as a total wreck - it had been rear-ended at a stop light and pushed into the car in front. Many parts literally came in peach baskets. (Honest!). Total repair and restoration time was about six months. Dad managed to save all the bodywork and spent about 2 months just beating panels - the front fenders had been folded behind the wheels. The frame wasn't bent, fortunately. We got a new radiator shell and a used gas tank and spare tire mount. We painted it a metallic green (Chrysler color) and used it for a year or two. I think we paid $250 for it, then sold it for $1300 to buy the Alfa.	The TD at Lime Rock. This was the first trip of any length that we made with it - the paint was barely dry. Race cars often have their headlights taped to prevent glass from flying around in a collision but ours were taped here to keep them from falling out. The MG was very reliable and we put a lot of miles on it. Behind it is a TD Mk II and alongside are an MGA and a Nash something or other.

The only external difference between '53 TD's and earlier ones are the round tail lights. This was the last year for the TD - it was replaced by the TF in 1954. At one point, the TD repair/restoration was finished except that we could not use the original fuel tank or spare tire mount because of the accident damage. I remember my father calling a friend who had a junk yard in New Haven and asking about MG parts. He was told that the only parts they had were a gas tank and a tire mount - that was all. Miracles do happen, I guess.	The original steering wheel was destroyed in the accident, and we replaced it with a wheel from a '57 Corvette. A simple hub adapter was machined and it ended up looking pretty good, considering. The rest of the interior remained original. We only put the top up once on this car, when we were caught in a rainstorm. Somehow, though, we still managed to get soaked.
750cc OSCA #757, Engine #758
I don't remember how we got this car, which had been rolled and was in tough shape. The frame and suspension seemed ok. Part of the belly pan is leaning on the wall behind the car. My father spent a little time on the body, but quickly gave up on the nose as being beyond repair. Eventually, other projects took priority and the OSCA was simply hauled to the dump. We kept some pieces and sold them off later. I still have the serial number plate and tonneau cover. Today it would be restored, but then it was just an old racing car.	I think there was more craftsmanship evident in the brakes and wheels of this car than most entire cars contain. They would not be out of place in an art museum. Even the frame, made of large diameter tubes, was exquisite.


This was our Lotus Eleven and my second Berkeley. The Lotus had been a factory team car (#62) at Le Mans in 1957 and possibly Sebring in 1958. It was red with a black stripe here - we are not responsible for the dreadful paint scheme. The Berkeley was a three cylinder, 500cc, two stroke. We bought it at a used car dealer in Hartford. They wanted $995 - we offered $295 and they took it and we towed it home at the end of a rope. This was the longest trip I ever made in it. (This is not the red Berkeley shown elsewhere, it's a different one). Berkeley serial # C-349, engine # E-462. [The return of the Berkeley! Click here for more.]	Probably about 1964. My mother's Ford Skyliner dominates - this had an electrically operated retractable hardtop. My father used the VW for daily transportation. The BMW 507 was bought as a total wreck at an auction although it had little damage. The Corvettes were mine. I had the '57 for only about a week. I drove the '58 for a while and later sold it to pay a tuition bill. Walked for a while, then bought a cheap XK-150 coupe.

This is the garage about 1963. On the far left, sideways, is a Kieft Formula 3 car. Behind it, unseen here, is its body as well as (most of) an OSCA 750cc sports racing car. In the middle is my 2 cylinder Berkeley, the first of two I owned. Somewhere in there is my Super A class kart. Not at home is our Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spyder. [It is likely that the Kieft survives today in the care of a capable and sympathetic owner. For more info and current pictures click here. The car has quite a history and currently has a J.A.P engine installed.]	Here's an awful picture inside the garage, showing the OSCA and the Alfa. We got the Alfa cheap because it had engine problems (burned valve) and because some poor body work had been performed on it in the past. At this point, we had pulled the engine (sitting on a creeper) and started hacking away at the fender to start fixing it up.