For as long as I can remember, I've been a car enthusiast. My first experience with a car was in London when I bought a Morris Mini Minor for £110 from a man emigrating to Australia. Since I didn't know much about cars, I learned later on the Mini had worn synchronisers on 3rd gear. Every time I'd come to a traffic signal in 3rd gear, the shift lever would pop into neutral.
Just around the corner from where I lived, there was a small shop under a canvas awning that worked on the Watney brewery's lorries. Sometimes I would stop and watch the owner work and would ask questions. When I asked about the shift lever on my Mini, he told me it had worn synchronisers and explained what they did. He finally told me to get an exchange gearbox from Halford's and he'd help me swap it out.
Since I was only making £28 per month at the time, I had to save for several months to have enough money to buy the refurbished gearbox. Once I purchased it, the shop owner helped me install it and that's how my love affair with cars began!
Over the years, I've owned and repaired many interesting cars:
Jaguar
I was also very fortunate to have worked with Ingegnere Nereo Iori as an apprentice. His depth of knowledge always amazed me! I helped him prepare engines and gearboxes for Luigi Chinetti's racing cars. Iori was so amazing, I'm sure he could assemble a gearbox from a box of parts blindfolded!
Iori didn't speak much English, so I had to follow his instructions and learn the names of everything in Italian. I can still remember most of those details and hear him say: 'Doug, prendi il motore.' or 'Doug, prendi la trasmissione e la frizione!'
Tuning the six Webers on the 512M engines was always a challenge. Iori and I would experiment with various jets in the Webers to make the engines want to run very rich at idle so they would be perfect on the track. Trial and error!
After five years working as an apprentice, I left to explore other opportunities in the automotive industry. Along the way, I became a Service Manager for several dealerships, eventually becoming a Sales Manager and later a General Manager.
In the mid 1980s, I was approached by Toyota to join their New York Region as a District Service Manager. After a short time as a District Service Manager, I became a District Sales Manager. Due to promotions and moves by other members of the Region, I was assigned to be the Regional Service Manager and later the Regional Dealer Operations Manager. As Dealer Operations Manager, I was tasked with helping dealerships in financial hardship to work their way back to profitability.