In 1956, Ben Sands Jr. Became a U.S. Air Force officer stationed at the Sidi Slimane Air Base in Morocco, domestic to a squadron of long-variety bombers. One day Ben determined to spend $30 on six $5 tickets for of venture that turned into raising money for the Air Force Aid Society. Ben later joked that he should have offered simply one price tag: the one that gained the raffle — and the prize, an Austin-Healey 100M roadster with a green-over-white paint activity, black interior, and louvered bonnet. (That’s a hood to you and me.) Ben’s daughter, Jenifer Sands Scott, answered my call for antique vehicle memories, and Ben’s, in reality, is one. Austin-Healey became a loved member of the family.
The car competed in several races in Morocco until Ben was given his subsequent task and moved to Omaha with his spouse, Mary Lou. Then came Chicago, the Pentagon, and an 18-month tour in Saigon in 1968 and 1969. “The Healey, in the meantime, was stationed in a barn on his circle of relatives’ belongings in eastern Tennessee,” Jenifer wrote. After retiring from the Air Force, Ben labored as a professor at George Mason University (despite the truth that he’d never earned an undergraduate diploma). After retiring from GMU, he had the time and money to give Healey a new life.
“Dad and the Healey have been reunited on the family domestic in Vienna, Va., inside the 1980s,” Jenifer wrote. “It was given a clean paint respray from Healey Surgeons of Hyattsville in 1984. Then in 2016, Dad and my more youthful brother, Jon Sands, introduced the automobile to Classic Car Solutions in Stafford, which took the auto again to showroom circumstances. It was due to the fact been entered in Britain on the Green vehicle shows held at Gunston Hall and Sully Plantation in Chantilly.” The Healey is now in Jon’s father-in-law’s residence, being nicely cared for. Ben Sands died on Feb. 14, 2019, one day shy of his 91st birthday. Wrote Jenifer: “The vehicle and its tale sum up my Dad pretty nicely: a charmed life nicely lived.”
Mike Levin additionally received a British vehicle overseas: a flame-purple 1949 MG TC, bought in Oxford, England, in October 1964. It values at 50 kilos, cash that Mike took out of the generous scholarship finances he had at his disposal simultaneously as income for a master’s diploma at Wadham College. At the original Morris Garage across the corner from the university, an engine rebuilds — price any other eighty kilos.
“You may want to inform it become an MG overhaul because they nonetheless painted the engine block gold once they completed, to reveal they did the best job,” wrote Mike of the District. “Still, she dripped oil everywhere till we discovered her oil gauge turned into caught at empty and stopped seeking to pinnacle her off. Double-checking her petrol level was now not a problem — I reduced a wooden rod down her vertical rear tank.”
The vehicle transported Mike and his soon-to-be wife, Jean, during the Cotswolds. “I wanted to carry her with us when Jean and I sailed lower back to the States in 1966. However, experts cautioned that most of her components would disappear at some point during the voyage,” wrote Mike. And so he sold the MG to a nice young freshman who promised to provide her with n amazing home. Wrote Mike: “British motors carry the same registration code from the start. When I logged onto the U.K. Registration gadget last yr, her wide variety seemed active. Far as I recognize, at 70, she’s nevertheless strolling.”