39 years and counting

I was looking through some papers today and realized I bought my Dino from the first owner on December 11 1974. I was two years into my first job making $6000 a year. I could not get a loan but I was lucky enough to assume his lease with a down payment of $1800 with a monthly rental fee of $352.83. This was probably very close to three weeks of take home pay. By Feb. of '76 I paid off enough to get a loan for the balance of $6486.10 at 11.52% APR. I remember that I paid it completely off in two more years. Lucky I got a few promotions by '78 and had enough money to spend it all on a '55 Speedster and a '75 BMW.

The pictures show when I first bought my Dino. One picture shows that my house was so small with a tall single car garage that I had to build a wooden shelf/ramp to hold the Speedster so I did not have to store it outside during the winter. Eventually I built a big deck off the back of my house that I closed in so I had a bigger place to work on my race bikes and cars. Around 2000 I decided to restore my car working in my small garage. Lucky I had a friend with a restoration shop with a spray booth so I was able to shoot the paint in a clean area. I had to tape foam to the walls to open the doors without chipping them.

Now that I am retired I moved to the mountains of NC and have a 40' by 50' garage and a separate paint booth. I finished up the restoration in this garage.

My car was bought through Chinetti motors for $13,800, picked up at the factory, driven around Europe, and then shipped back to the US.

Time flies-
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I do but do you want them as a PM?

 

In 1975 I took a coast to coast ride on a T500 Suzuki and when I came back I went right to th e BMW dealer and bought the R90S with a $300 for buying an orange one. I kept that bike for over 15 years even when tracking Ducati's. I finally sold it and got a red/yellow K1, then a K1200Rs.

On the street the I now ride a conversion '69 /2 and I think it handles better then the R90s. But I have updated the /2 with an R80 motor with Dellorto's, and machined up the axles and torque rode to install a Yamaha TD-2 four leading shoe brake.

I have been lucky to have ridden and raced many types of bikes.
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Thanks everyone.

I sold the Speedster about ten years ago- one of those moments when you feel you need to reduce - and my house was so small that I had my race bikes in the house-- my wife is a saint. I had built a '61 356 convertible into an Auto-cross car and it was much more fun to drive then the Speedster, plus I had a '51 356 split window convertible that I was restoring. The guy I sold it to still own's it and kept it the way I sold it to him. He did not restore it so it retains its original appearance. It was rust free-- and he drives it a lot which makes me happy.

I still drive my 356 auto-cross car (we took it on our honeymoon 25 years ago) only now I have Hoosier's on it rather then the Yokohama 001r/008r I used for auto-cross- great up here in the mountains. I built a '58 sunroof coupe as a wedding present for my wife and she still drive it in the summer.

I sent a bunch of pictures to Matthias but here are a few of them.

The shot of me driving down 395 around DC was shot in '75- notice the VW and also the halo of hair I had at the time- wider then the head rest.

The picture with the yellow Carrara Targa was taken in '78. The picture with the Black '85 Turbo look targa was taken in '85.

I had taken a trip with a friend to the Porsche factory to pick up his new 944 Turbo (he ran out of woman to ask to come with him) and I first saw the Turbo look that factory started producing in '84. I came back to the US and re-mortgaged my small house so I could buy it. It cost about $50K at the time which was more then I paid for my house in '76.

Uro- I do have many restoration pictures but I think Jon's many restoration threads have way better pictures then I took. Most of mine are close up shots to remind me how to put it back together
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Thanks everyone for the kind words.

Fred- If I got away with showing my old pictures (after this post they will be not wanting any more) I am sure we would all love to see yours. Like you I wish everyone will have a car that will collect memories for them.

Owing and driving my Dino for all these years has been both normal and yet crazy to me—I always knew I would never sell it. I bought it when I was 24 and I used to just drive it for hours through the night. I would take off the airbox cover some nights just so I could have that carb intake sound behind my head. The vibration through the seat bottom at 6-7 K rpm would actually give me a buzz. I used to joke with my friends that driving my Dino beat mediocre sex.

It was funny have two cars that were basically diametrically opposed in how people would react to you while driving it. Driving the Speedster was like walking a puppy- everyone would come up to you and talk assuming you were a nice open friendly guy. Driving the Dino most people would ignore you-or if you were stopped at a light I would hear them saying to their girlfriends that I must be some stuck up guy driving his “Lambrogini” thinking he is cool.

Of course I got a lot of attention from cops who would stop me to be sure I did not steal the car--with hair to my shoulders and wearing a T shirt I guess I did not look like an owner of that nice of a car.

On the other end of the spectrum I would get thumbs up from guys with hot VW’s. They would stop me and tell me what a nice job I did on building my Kelmark GT. I guess I looked more like a guy that would owned that- but how they thought my Dino even came close to looking like that shabby Kelmark would always mystify me.


One of the most fun parts was diving into a sharp left hand turn and feathering the throttle so I would still have drive and not have the carbs burp and slow me down. One night at about 3 am I was racing a 911S down the George Washington Parkway and I pulled ahead of him going down the ramp the puts you North on 395—it is a decreasing radius turn. I did not lift and both ends let go into a free drift slide that sounded like ripping adhesive. I started to panic as I came to the edge of the pavement but I gave it a bit more throttle and by shear luck I drifted out onto 395 like I had planned it.—But through that slow motion ballet-all I could think of besides not to do anything stupid -was “Hell- I have not even paid off the loan yet!” The next day I get a call from a friend who had gotten a call from the driver of the 911 - a friend of his. The 911 driver told my friend that he had run with a guy with a Dino who drove his Dino on the street like he was on the track- lucky he did not see my eyes which were about as large as pie plates as I was going along for the ride in that drift.


I simply love bikes and cars. I have always been a gear-head and I probably would have been a mechanic if my dad did not force me to go to collage. I think being a home mechanic made me a good engineer so I am glad I went down that road- and the money was much better. I retired as the senior engineer for the Hubble Telescope and with all the stress it was a ball.



Euro- I know that Jon’s restoration pictures are much better then mine so I will only show a few to let you see the space I had to work in and a few shots on how it all turned out.

The first shot is of me prepping it for paint at my friend Chuck Wrey’s shop. It was called GT motorcars until he closed it. I had just finished up the welding – the rockers were easy to make, the pan under the front was a pain, but the Euro lamp hole that looked so crude and easy to replicate took me three attempts and many hours. Finally Chuck’s fabricator took pity on me and straightened out what I attempted. I now have a lot more respect for those Italian fabricators—even though I found my left side fender about three quarter of inch lower then my right fender.

How do you like the Aston in the background? He worked on some very cool cars.

The second shows how tight it was in my old garage when I did the assembly- I really could not open the doors. Installing the door glass was a painful experience. Trying to keep the door partially open and not swinging open to hit the foam became an art. Once I was lying on my side on the doorsill and the foam came down off the wall. I jerked up to see where the sound came from and of course I hit the door open with my knee and the door edge smacked the wall- small chip that at the time made me almost go ballistic.


Yes- I converted my Dino to the Euro look- and I put on headlight covers. I figured it was for me so I did not care about originality. I will be one of those old guys that will have a garage or two stuffed with “barn finds and everything in it will have been well used- and in many cases not original.

So some quick shots of the motor, interior, and the front and rear storage areas. You will notice that I never got around to painting the black in the channels or under the front and rear of the car. One day I will repaint the sides up higher where they belong and paint the rest.

I bought the leather hides from England, and the carpet as a roll in the US and had a trimmer named Bruce Phillips in Winchester VA make the seat covers and cut and bind the carpet. I covered the dash using mouse-hair fabric from a NOS Daytona dash kit I bought in France. Yes the grain goes the wrong way but it was the correct material when at the time all I could find was the Blue/Black jewelry box fabric for our normal suppliers. I covered the dash in that material and it made me heave every time I looked at it since I knew what the original should look like. And yes-- I do feel guilty for depriving an owner of a Daytona from using the kit-- but the repro mouse-hair is spectacular from what I hear so this mythical owner is better off.

I showed the trunk only to show the bracket I made to hold the antenna. Mine, like many I have seen, came with some twisted up sheet metal banding. I figured I would add this touch for the next owner. Trying to be a good “caretaker”.

Since my retirement I have not slowed down much- just takes me longer to do things. I figure that the medical profession will end up with all my money if I do not spend it- so I am now a teenager with cash. I want to taste every machine I can afford

Two garages, both bigger then my old house and already filled up. You know the gear-head dream of having more garage space then living space--I had to retire to achieve it. At least now I have a real spray booth so no longer painting outside. Since I retired- rather then selling off my machines and simplifying- I seem to have added to the collection with four more race bikes- two ex- AMA bikes and two new. I am in the middle of restoring the AMA bikes.


The second from last picture shows my latest race bike. It is a salvaged Ducati D16RR that I bought cheap and put on the track. It is a hoot on tracks like Barbor and Grattan.

How do you like the tractor- I now have 7 acres to take care of. The Audi wagon in the background is my '95 S6 which I RS2'd and it puts out about 380 HP. Installed Porsche twin turbo brakes to stop the sucker. I have had this panzer wagon since '97. Just old school.

The last is a picture of me today—to put a face with a name.
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Ero-

Please do---You and other members of this forum were very generous with their time. Many forum members went beyond what I though most would do for a complete stranger. Yourself (he with two first names), Jim Selevan, Rocco, Scott M, Jeff, Ed, and many others who I would like to sit down and have a beer with.

One thing I learned from this forum even though I do not post much- you have a question -- just ask. Someone will get back to you either with a direct answer or a PM. This is one of the few forums that owner's actually turn their own wrenches and are not afraid to restore their own cars. I hope this does not change as the value of these great cars rise.