Patch and the Intercom
In the summer of 2002, I made the poverbial car in the barn discovery: a one owner 1955 MG TF1500. It rolled into a garage in 1972 with a broken motor and languished there for 30 years. Long story short, I performed a frame-off restoration, then sold it.
The calendar page flipped to August as I tried to sell it. The local MG crowd raised their eyebrows with skepticism on my top of the market pricing. I knew I had to get it to the "Monterey Weekend." Until then, it had roughly 200 miles of short hops under its belt, but none longer than 60 miles.
The Monterey Historic Automobile Races, Pebble Beach Concours, and a host of other activities surrounding these events turn Monterey into sports car Mecca every August, Pebble Beach I grew up attending this event, and have sold several cars in the dusty parking lots of Laguna Seca Raceway. It was an opportunity for exposure I couldn't miss.
The week before the event, I started thinking about the Concorso Italiano. I had never been, and I'd heard stories about a huge number of cars and very respectable attendance figures. Plus it had a corral parking area that had become an attraction in its own right.
This was the first real shakedown test of the TF. My plan was to make it a very long day, drive the 100 miles from near San Francisco and make it back the same night. The following day I planned to take my Cortina down for the historic races, as Ford was the featured marque.
I'd cleaned the car and prepared my sales materials: numerous business cards with my website, full sized flyers, DVD and CD-ROM slideshows with images of the restoration.
TF at the Concorso Italiano Corral.
The only way to drive a T -Series MG is with the windshield folded flat. The sensation of the wind and its noise makes a sedate pace feel brisk. Plus it just looks cool.
To this point, the break-in miles covered in the car were on back roads and city streets to avoid buzzing the freshly rebuilt motor. I set out before sunrise, to make it to the Consorso by 8:00am. Outfitted with glasses, jacket, and ear plugs, I joined the pre-rush hour freeway conga line with the windshield folded flat. I kept to the right lane. I was jittery nervous, having never driven the TF at "speed." I watched the tachometer religiously as I poked along in the right lane. Gravel trucks lumbered by. As the sun rose, I felt slightly more at ease and added a few revs. Time stood still, as I motored south between 50 -60 miles per hour. The car was fine, but by the 50 mile mark I had filled my bladder with nervous energy. I vowed to make it to Santa Cruz. Coming down the hill on the ocean side of the mountains I thought I could feel the car working harder, and slightly cutting out. Was it me? Was it a headwind? Or did I just have to pee so bad I was hearing things?
I rolled off the highway into the first gas station in town. As I parked the TF in a space at the side of the station, I noticed a couple of guys sitting on the curb in front of the "mini-mart" store. In the 1980s Time-Life Music advertised a compilation of late '60s tunes called "Freedom Rock", with television ads featuring two guys in wigs mumbling and stumbling around a flowered Volkswagen van. These two looked like their slightly dusty stunt doubles. "Is that thing air-cooled?" one of them asked. Obviously Volkswagen powered MiGi replica MG TD kits had a big following in Santa Cruz.
I explained it wasn't a replica, it was 1955, front-engined, and watercooled. The second guy walked over to look at the car. I went into the mini-mart to find a restroom. When I emerged, I found him hovering around the car. "This is great man. Did you redo it?" I explained that I had, and I was headed to an event to try to sell it. "Man, you know Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead? He collects cars, like old Porsches and stuff, and he'd be into this man. You just need to hook it up on the intercom, and tell him Patch sent 'ya." I told him I had done some advertising on the "intercom" and had sold other cars that way. I wasn't sure what was more alarming, the advice itself, or the vague disconnect from the electronic revolution. Nevertheless, it was sound advice. The Concorso produced no appreciable interest, but eventually through the internet I connected with a buyer in Canada who bought the MG. Bob Weir never emailed.
The intercom, just hook it up, and tell 'em Patch sent 'ya. Ha ha. A few months later, while walking the streets of Brussels, Belgium, I realized that Patch was a little more tech-savvy than I thought when I spotted this in the middle of a cobblestone street:
Just lift this plate for a direct hook up man. Bob Weir, you there?