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Here is a bit of my background relating to my love affair with cars, particularly British cars.

My first car was a 1956 Chevy that I bought in 1960. The car, being only 4 years old and with only 25,000 miles on the clock was to give me years of great service. It probably would have too if I hadn’t gotten mixed up with a bunch of gear heads who promptly taught me how to modify the car so it would perform better and, most importantly, sound better. It took about 3 or 4 transmissions to learn how to downshift without a clutch. Why I needed to learn that on a 3 speed I don’t know. That car and my friends taught me a lot about fixing cars and prepared me for my next dream car.

That dream car was a 1961 Triumph TR3. Now this was a car! Who cares how fast one can go in a straight line? This car really handles. None of my friends knew anything about these “imports” as they were muscle car guys. The TR3 was pretty reliable though. For a while at least!

I graduated from college in 1966 and my first assignment for Westinghouse was in Buffalo, NY only a short 100 mile drive from Erie, PA where I grew up. It was in February and if you know about Interstate 90 in that neck of the woods you can imagine what it was like having the TR3 as my daily driver. That first month on the job I drove from Buffalo to Erie every weekend. I-90 runs parallel to the Southern shore of Lake Erie and is smack dab in the middle of the “snow belt”. Some years are worse than others but the winter of 1965/1966 brought about 150 inches of snow with temperatures averaging between 15 and 20 degrees in February and winds averaging about 100mph (or so it seemed).

Before leaving work each Friday, I donned my long underwear under my business suit. Over the top of my business suit I wore quilted underwear and a parka with a fur hood. I had two pair of gloves. I wore one pair and sat on the other pair to keep them from freezing. I changed from one pair to the other often. I had a soft top and a decent pair of side curtains. Only problem was that the soft top lifted at speed and left about a 2 inch gap between the side curtains and the top. I solved that problem by fabricating some hooks from coat hangers and fastening the top to the side curtains after I got in the car. That was good for about ½ a degree inside the car.

The heater on the TR3 made a lot of noise but produced no heat. (More on that later) On a summer day, the trip was only about 2 hours. In February, it was more like 4 hours if the blizzards did not slow you down too much. By the time I reached my destination, it took several hours to thaw me out. I dreamed about having a car like an MGBGT or TR4 with roll up windows and heater that worked. I kept the TR3 until 1970 when my oldest boy was born.

Quite a bit of time passed without a “toy” car. When my oldest was nearing 16, I was a single parent with 2 boys and drove a 4 door company car. I couldn’t wait until he could drive so I would not have to cart the kids around everywhere. I started thinking about another sports car. By that time, most of the Triumphs and MGs up north were rust buckets. I found a great 280Z that had been stored winters and ran great. That was just the ticket for my “fun car” and my son’s daily driver. My #2 son still complains about having to drive my Junker plow truck (The Beast) as his daily driver when he turned 16.

My 280Z was a real chick magnet for me and for my son. I met Connie that summer. On our first date I was driving her home and taking a right hand sweeping curve pretty fast. I wanted to test us for compatibility! I could not believe it when she said that was her “favorite” turn. Needless to say we took many curves during our courtship leading to a lifelong partnership and a fantastic blended family.

We sold the 280Z and went a few years without a “toy” car. With six kids and two dogs, there just was not very much time for car stuff. That ended one afternoon as we were sitting in front of our house waiting for guests to arrive for a summer picnic. I was trying to talk Connie into trading in her car for a new truck that would double as her daily driver and our snow plow in the winter. The “Beast” had died and we needed something to clear our 350 foot long driveway in the winter. Just then, my brother drove up in his new “toy” car, a 1990 Miata. Connie said, “Now if I had a car like that to drive in the summer, I would not mind driving a 4wd pickup in the winter”. That was all the encouragement I needed! The next week, Connie had her brand new 4wd Chevy Silverado loaded with all the ‘Goodies” she wanted.

By then, I was travelling all around the world on business and took every opportunity to review Hemmings news before each business trip for possible “toy” cars. TR’s, MG’s and Healy’s were on my short list. Connie accompanied me on a business trip to Atlanta that summer. I, of course, found several sources around Atlanta for all of the above cars the previous week. One afternoon we took a ride to Athens, GA to look at several cars. One was the TR6 we owned from 1991 to 2024. It had no seats, no top and did not run. It was a solid southern car but needed much work. The next day we struck a deal with the shop to strip it, paint it, put seats in it, install a new top and get it running. About six weeks later, I flew down to Athens from Erie and drove the car home. Well, at least, part way home. That trip was a story you can find in the archives of the FBCC newsletters from 1997 or 1998. Connie now had her summer car and her winter truck. She was so happy!

In 1996 we moved to Greenville with no kids, 2 daily drivers (Connie’s truck and my Buick) and the TR6. My first British car event in South Carolina was the Euro Auto Festival that same year. I met many of you there. Several weeks later on a particularly cold mountain run I complained that heaters in British cars were there simply to take up space. They make a lot of noise but produce no heat! Mike Barefield asked me if I ever tried opening the vent behind the bonnet to get air circulating through the heater. Remembering my TR3 on Interstate 90 in the winter of 1966 at 20 degrees, I could not believe I had owned two British cars in the cold, cold north and all I had to do was open the vent to get heat! Go figure!

One weekend I went to Road Atlanta to see a race. There I learned that the track had a function called a high-performance driving event. You could actually drive your own street car on the track at speed with other cars. There was classroom instruction as well as individual coaching from Road Atlanta’s professional instructors! You could even bring a friend to ride with you. It was too good to be true! After installing a roll bar in the TR6, Rich Hall, a former FBCC member, and I went “racing”. That is when I really got bit by the racing bug. For the next event, I managed to talk another friend into running with us. He rented an M3 BMW for his first event.

I had already joined the FBCC and managed to talk Mike Barefield into participating in these “racing” events. Rich was always ready to ride with one of us and became our crew chief. Of course, the TR6 got heavily modified in the next few years of performance driving. As we got better and the cars were modified, we went faster and faster. That is, until one day at Carolina Motorsports, I spun and almost got creamed by three cars behind me. Fortunately, my spin took me off the track into the grassy sand. Right then I decided I needed a real race car with a full cage and all the safety equipment required for SCCA racing.

That’s how I got the Sprite that many of you have seen either in pictures or in person. I got a British race car because I was already familiar with British Engineering and they are easy to work on. Little did I know you need to work on them even more than British street prepared cars. Shortly after I got my SCCA competition license Mike Barerfield bought an MG Midget and obtained his competition license. We both ran H Production SCCA regional races.

Since joining the club in 1996, I have made many new friends. In fact, it is safe to say that I met most of my friends in Greenville through FBCC. As I recall, we had about forty members in the late 90’s. With somewhere near 180 members now the club has certainly grown and prospered. Many thanks to everyone who has helped that happen!

Tom Buto