January 2003 The Healey Enthusiast Page 5

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Every hundred and twenty miles or so, he stopped to fill up the tank and reset the trip odometer, because of course the gas gauge didn’t work.  The station attendants got quite a chuckle seeing this shivering young lad, trying to warm himself while eating chocolate chip cookies next to their cash register.  

Driving through St. Louis around midnight, he missed an exit or two, but eventually found I-55 and the quick route north through Illinois.  Then around this state’s Springfield, the engine started cutting out, and it just got worse as he neared Bloomington.  The father and son had meticulously rebuilt the 1275cc A-series engine in this Sprite just four years earlier.  The son knew every bolt and bushing, and he surmised that this was an electrical problem.  Damn Lucas!  What he didn’t know was how to find a British car repair shop in Bloomington, Illinois at 3:00 am on a frigid January morning.  So when the engine stopped completely, he just pulled over and calmly collected his thoughts.  The battery cranked the starter just fine, but the engine wouldn’t fire.  After a couple of cookies, he turned the key again, and it started right up.  He managed to limp it along until he was just south of Rockford on State Highway 51 where it quit for good.  6:00 am.  Pitch black.  Not another car in sight.  20 degrees with a stiff wind.  No heat.  No top.  No more cookies.  Off in the distance he could just barely make out two huge cooling towers.  Must be a nuclear power plant, he thought.  Things were looking rather grim.

        Then a faint light appeared far down the road.  It grew steadily brighter into two distinct headlights.  The son stood in the road to flag down the car.  The big four-door Chevy sedan pulled to a stop behind the little Sprite and the driver lowered his window.  He was a dark-complected man, and spoke excellent English with a strong Middle-Eastern accent.  “May I give you some assistance?”  

  “My electrical system keeps cutting out.  Could you give me a ride to the nearest town?”

        “Certainly.  We are driving to the nuclear power plant in Byron.  There is a restaurant about two miles ahead.”  The son climbed into the back seat, next to two neatly dressed gentlemen with shirt pocket protectors.  At the time, the son was certain that this Caprice was the warmest and most comfortable car he had ever ridden in.  He exchanged small talk with his fellow passengers, and when they dropped him off at the café, he thanked them profusely.  They were the nicest Iraqi nuclear engineers he had ever met.

        The story turns prosaic at this point.  The son called a towing service which agreed to pull the Sprite the remaining 100 miles to Madison for a modest charge.  Climbing sheepishly into the truck’s cab, the son fell asleep before the driver was in fourth gear.  Later that morning, Mom was so happy to see her son again that she even paid the towing bill !

Wildest Healey Highlights – How a British Car Changed My Life By Tom Hazen

TULSA, OKLAHOMA, January 8, 1985 - The smart-aleck 21-year-old son finally decided he had had enough.  So he loaded his prized record collection onto the passenger seat of a primer-brown 1968 Austin Healey Sprite with no top.  Selling his music at a local record store should give him enough gas money for the trip up to mom’s house in Madison, Wisconsin.  You see, he had been living with his dad in Tulsa since Reagan was re-elected a couple of months earlier, and things just weren’t working out.  Despite the passion they shared for old British cars, this father and son just couldn’t agree on what the son should do with his life.

        So with the Sprite idling unevenly in the driveway and Nestlé Toll House chocolate chip cookies packed in Tupperware as his only road food, the son called his dad at work.  “Dad, I’ve decided to move back to Mom’s place.  I’m leaving in the Sprite right now.  Can I borrow your motorcycle helmet in case the weather turns cold?”

        There was a brief silence on the other end of the line.  Then in a touching display of emotion, the father asked, “Don’t you want to get the oil changed first?”

        “No Dad, I’m moving out”

        “How about checking the alignment?  You said it was pulling to the left a little”

        “Nope.  It’s okay.  I’m going back to college in Madison.  Classes start next week.”

        “Well, drive safely then.”  And that was that.

        The sun was just dipping behind the tall Tulsa oaks as he drove out of the quiet neighborhood and onto the highway.  Heading northeast along Route 66 and I-44, daylight soon faded and the temperature dropped precipitously from a high of 60 degrees.The helmet came in handy, because with the rag top missing, the wind was blowing a little. The Sprite ran well through MO - Joplin, Springfield, Lebanon, and the rolling hills of Rolla.