All right, here's the Brian Hollands story.
I'm a 35 year old trainer / consultant with ADP Dealer Services working
with franchised car dealership service departments basically teaching
them how to quote prices to customers inquiring about repair costs. We
build software that allows clients to do this quickly. Most of them
still don't get it though.
I live in Tampa FL with my wife Bonnie who prefers horses to cars, but
she's coming around. I'm a native Floridian but left for Texas at age 2
and took 30 years to return. We have no kids but now have 3 dogs having
just acquired a new stray. My earliest clear childhood memory is that
of my father under our 69 510 wagon with the transmission out on his
chest as he was changing the clutch. I guess the car genes came through
loud and clear. He had worked in his high school shop class to put some
big engine (Chrysler or Studebaker - I don't remember) into an English
Standard as a project. That car had mechanical brakes (not hydraulic)
and, with the engine transplant, was quite exciting or so I'm told.
Well before my time though. Dad's antics also included hanging around
the local drag races and a few trips out to Bridgehampton to watch
Ferrari's and other such exotica. He was also involved in a late night,
highly illegal lap around the Grand Prix circuit at Watkins Glen before
the '61 US GP.
As for me, the addiction officially began at age 16 when I bought my 69
2000 out of a junkyard in Birmingham AL. Dad thought it would be fun
for the two of us to rebuild a car for me and I was all over that. I've
owned my 2000 for 19 years now. Had the body off the frame once and
gone through the engine twice. Had many adventures in that car and am
looking forward to many more. Since then, I have owned a 73 240Z, a
Mazda RX4 and an RX3 which was a still born project. Got bit by the
rotary bug a few years ago and still have a 4 port 13B sitting in my
folks garage. One day. Did a complete restoration on a Bugeye Sprite
while I was living in Maryland. I'm currently starting a restoration on
my brother's TR6 which will include a swap to a F.I. DOHC 3.0L Ford
Duratec. My first serious work with OBDII and Fuel Injection. And the
latest foolish addicted to cars thing I've done is get a Florida dealer
license and have opened a small lot just up the street. Right now I'm
only dealing Miata's (lots of fun by the way) but hope to play with some
Z3's, S2000's, and WRX's in the near future.
Other hobbies include playing guitar (or maybe it's really losing guitar
picks that's the hobby), playing hockey (I was a goaltender at St.
Lawrence Univ. and was good enough to have played in the minors at least
but quickly discovered the eternal tap in the frat basement and let's
face it, playing in a band and chasing skirts was more fun than hockey
practice), and then there brewing beer. I highly recommend home brewing
as an accompaniment to working on old sports cars.
My 2000 is soon to get solex's (yeah, Sid, I'm really going to put them
on) and a comp suspension along with that LSD I got a while back. It
might just make it to an auto-x or two.
Brian '69 2000
Tampa, FL
web.Tampabay.rr.com/oilleak
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