PPART OF THE FUN of collecting is learning the provenance
British cars took over the Wrightsville Beach park during the Brits
at the Beach car show in May. Eric Robinson loves his ’71 Triumph
Stag (second from top), even though one publication included it
on a list of the 50 worst cars ever made.
PHOTOS BY SIMON GONZALEZ
of the car. Armistead knows his Roadmaster was shipped to
France, where it had custom bodywork by Frenay, a Paris
coachbuilder, commissioned by a French film director. The car
was hidden in Norway during World War II, and came home
when it was shipped back to the United States in the ’80s.
Eric Robinson, events director of the BMCCF, also knows
the history of his ’71 Triumph Stag.
“The Stag is rare,” he says. “It was a visionary of its time —
beautiful, Italian designed, top speed of 120. It’s also on the
list of the 50 worst cars ever built.”
The Stag indeed appears on Time magazine’s list of the
50 worst cars of all time. Robinson says disputes between the
unions and the government and company led to poor quality
control. Overheating was a common problem, caused by
casting sand left inside the engine.
Robinson got one of the good ones. It has 74,000 relatively
trouble-free miles on the original engine and transmission. But
if it did require frequent repairs, that would be OK too. That’s
part of the experience of owning British cars, which are notori-ous
for spending a lot of time in the shop.
That’s the reputation, anyway. Whether true or not, it’s
something BMCCF members embrace with good humor.
“Most of us lucked into having a British car,” says John
Moore, who owns MGs. “I didn’t say good luck or bad luck.”
Allcorn currently has a ’62 and a ’67 Austin Healy and a
’72 Jag. He used to own two Jags.
“I have a friend who used to kid me,” he says. “He said the
reason you have two of them is so you have something to drive
while the other one is in the garage.”
The good news is they are easy to work on for a shade-tree
mechanic.
“People laugh about those engines being a tractor engine,
but that’s where they originated,” Moore says. “These cars are
dreadfully simple. Everything is easy to fix. Modern cars are
full of computers. No homebody like us can work on them.
On these things, if you can’t fix it, you can figure out how to
fix it. It’s very basic.”
You can’t walk into the local auto parts store and ask for a
carburetor for a 1937 Buick. But parts are surprisingly easy to
find. A cottage industry has sprung up around the hobby. Just
about anything is available on the Internet, and big national
and regional car shows become swap meets.
That’s a good thing. Because no matter the reliability of the
car when new, when something mechanical gets to be at least
25 years old, it will break at some point.
“They do require work,” Schnitzler says. “They require time
and patience. But you’re going to spend your time on some-thing.
Get off the Internet and work on a car. That’s what I say.
Do something with your hands. Go build something, restore
it. It can get expensive. But I don’t do jewelry, I’m not obsessed
with shoes. I like these. This is the bling that I like.”
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WBM december 2017