November 14, 2015
Trip to Mary and Lee’s – AKA “Garage de la Tour!”
One of the outings that I look forward is our – British Motoring Club of Montgomery’s outing to Mary and Lee’s marvelous garage in rural Geneva County. A short trip for our club a mere 95-mile trip from Montgomery. What made the day enjoyable was the beautiful-cloudless fall day – top-down for Tom and me – on our fine Alabama roads – making the trip most enjoyable.
With the Troy rest stop a distant memory we approached the Oxford Compound we could see Lee, prominently visible, waiting to greet us. We all piled out of our cars and converged on our host. After a short welcome grip and grin the conversation turned quickly to questions about the rows MGBs, MGB GTs and VW’s along with up-dates of Lee and Mary’s car restorations in progress. The verbal exchange quickly turned to their newest car acquisitions. One of Lee purchase was a Chevrolet Corvair. A compact automobile manufactured and marketed by Chevrolet for model years 1960–1969 – the only American-designed, mass-produced passenger car to feature a rear-mounted air-cooled engine. Back then the Corvair competed with the other rear-engine air-cooled Volkswagen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvair
As a matter of fact, Lee and Mary have two – one with the original Artesian Turquoise Poly paint that Lee stated he would confidently revive!
The most important take away was Lee and Mary’s enthusiasm lasting throughout the day all of us engaging Lee about the finer details of auto assembly, parts interchangeably and motor specifications. Of course these details and most of the terminology flew past me like a Formula One car on a straightaway.
The local VW club were also invited and enjoyed looking at and talking about Lee and Mary’s collection of VW campers, busses and autos.
Our convoy consisted of Tom – TR-6, David and Bill– Lexus, Hank – XJS, Ron and Joyce– GMC, Russell – MINI, and myself –XK8. I can report an uneventful drive.
The final highlight of the day was Mary’s Barbeque lunch topped off with a delightful dessert so good I just had to have two servings! Not only me but there was not an empty stomach in the group!
As we bid adieu to Mary and Lee I thanked them for generous donation to my MGB project and of course all of our appreciation for hosting the British Motoring Club of Montgomery for a great “Garage de la Tour” day!
Terry