Oh alright, I'll jump in on this one! I first saw a Spitfire in high
school, I believe it was a 69. That was such a cool car!! I wasn't even
in to cars at the time, and power to weight, handling, etc wasn't even in
my vocabulary per say. But being kinda an artsy guy, those lines did it
for me! It wasn't until a few wears later in 1973 when I was looking for
a new vehicle to replace the Simca Bertone coupe that someone graciously
totaled for me, that I began looking. I was partial to the roundtails but
I saw a bright red 1972 Spitfire calling to me on a dealers lot. I had to
have it. I looked all around the car, it only had 5000 miles on it, heck,
practically new! only one place on the bonnet looked to have been repaired
(driver side wing, by the latch) but it still looked new, and I was
bittten!! I took a test drive and was hooked! I was still too green for a
loan, so my dad co-signed for the for the $1500 I needed after the initial
$500 I had for the down. I still remember the payments of $67.22 for a
whopping 24 whole months! That was my sole transportation, until 1979 when
I bought the tow vehicle for the boat (72, 6 cyl Gremlin, don't laugh, that
was a great car. I had fixed it up with V8 rear end, automatic with shift
kit and B&M Quick Silver ratchet shifter, Hornet front discs, flared
fenders, Offy manifold with four barrel, hated selling that car). Anyway,
after driving for a few years, I had seen some sort of racing at the local
stadium parking lot so I checked it out. My first look at a slalom. What
fun! I joined the local chapter of Asebring Drivers Association and for
the next couple of years raced that little puppy, still my only
transportation! That's when I honed my mechanical skills (out of
necessity, couldn't afford anybody else to do it). That's when I
discovered that I actually liked working on and modifying these things. I
blew up the original 1296 big bearing engine, and had to replace it with a
70 1296 (at the time I didn't have the resources and the knowledge that one
get's with age and knuckle breaking, heart wrenching experience that one
gains over time) Since then, I have done so many things it would take to
much bandwidth to list. I have acquired the GT6 in 1988 restored it fully,
and just recently in 94 acquired a basket case 63-70 Spitfire (mixture of
63-70 parts). I went to a local British car event (San Diego British Car
Day) about 7-8 years ago, and started going to other similar shows, and
found that they were EVENT's. You had four days of car shows , races ,
rallys , tours and most of all, wonderful people that truly enjoy their
cars and the people that own them!! There is nothing more rewarding that
being in a caravan of British cars (especially TR's) tooling down a twisty
mountain road. That's what life is all about!!I I wouldn't have it any
other way. Some day, a TR3, or possibly a Stag will be in the stable.
Hey, ya gotta have dreams!
Barry Schwartz (San Diego) bschwart@pacbell.net
72 V6 Spitfire (daily driver)
70 GT6+ (when I don't drive the Spit)
70 Spitfire
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