After working at a gas station through the summer of 1959, I had earned enough money for a  1951 MG-TD, an elegant model whose styling was halfway between the super-boxy MG-TC and the sleeker, more modern MG-A.  It was maroon, and since it was a version called the Mark II, it had chrome headlights and additional trim.  It was the first car I ever bought with my own money, and it cost $500.  Being 17 years old, I naturally spent $600 to have black-leather seat upholstery installed.  The car looked great.

Unfortunately, oil regularly fouled the sparkplugs—at least once a week—but I was then working part-time at a gas station and could easily clean them myself to keep the car running.  Other than that, the car had various kinds of mechanical breakdown about once every few months. Maybe weeks.

When I took it in to the European Motors garage to be worked on for the umpteenth time, the owner/mechanic asked me if I wanted to buy an Austin Healy.  I said I loved those cars, but I already had an MG.  He said, “Yeah, but if you bought the Austin Healy, you’d have something to drive when the MG is in for repairs.”

When your mechanic makes that kind of joke, you know you’re in trouble.  He made a small fortune off of me.

I liked to drive around with the top down, smoking a Crooks cigar, and making an ultra-cool wave to other MGs on the road (lifting up the first finger of the right hand while continuing to grasp the wheel with the other fingers).  This gesture was every bit as necessary as my buckled-back driving cap.

I sold the MG when I moved north in 1963 to start graduate school at San Francisco State.   My father  had convinced me that it rained too much up there for a convertible (not so), but what carried the day was learning what a 21-year-old male would have to pay to insure a sports car in the Bay Area.

So I sold the MG for $1,000, thus losing only about two or three thousand on the deal.