Across the pond: British autos lend style to Mt. Lebanon car show
Hank Hughes is at the wheel of his 1967 Sunbeam Tiger, with his cap showing the car’s nationality.
Dave Burrows shows his 1951 Jowett Javelin Jupiter, with its distinctive manner of accessing the engine.
Dave and Betty Disque stand beside his Shelby Cobra replica.
Betty Disque’s 1958 Austin-Healey Sprite, known as the “Bugeye”
Fred Segal with his 1996 Jaguar XJS
The six-cylinder, four-liter engine of Fred Segal’s 1996 Jaguar
The protruding Jaguar hood ornament was available as an accessory for later models.
Rodney Weaver’s 1988 Zimmer
A Chevrolet pickup truck from the 1950s once was in service at a garage in Wheeling, W.Va.
A 1964 Rambler convertible, complete with bowling bag and trophy for the Ralph Kramdens of the world
The bumper sticker may be scary, but this 1970 Mercury Cougar is not.
Checking out a DeLorean are Andrew and Lasette Marshall, with son William, 2.
The gullwing door of the DeLorean, as popularized by the “Back to the Future” films
The design of the 1960s-era Jaguar E-Type never goes out of style.
Art Hartley with his 1950 Frazer, the upscale make of the Kaiser-Frazer Corp., which had a good run at production following World War II but couldn’t keep up with Detroit’s Big Three.
Maserati sells about 1,000 cars per month in the United States.
The unmistakable symbol of the Mercedes-Benz, as the make has been known since 1926, with the merger of separate companies producing the Benz and Mercedes
Mt. Lebanon Fire Department’s 84-year-old pumper
Dan Damratoski’s 1954 Sunbeam Talbot
Dan Damratoski’s 1954 Sunbeam Talbot
The V-8 engine of Hank Hughes’ 1967 Sunbeam Tiger
1977 TVR
In the first couple of seasons of “Get Smart,” Max rolls up to CONTROL headquarters in a Sunbeam Tiger roadster.
If you haven’t seen one since, keep an eye out for Hank Hughes. The manager and head professional at Mt. Lebanon Tennis Center has a 1967 version of the Tiger, the last year of production for the British sports car.
“I bought this in 1976, right out of college,” he said. “I drove it for 10 years as my only automobile, and it had clutch problems. I parked it for 25 years in a dry garage, and then I spent about five years getting it restored.”
Hughes was among the owners of an eye-popping array of vehicles parked Sunday on a closed-off portion of Washington Road for the annual Mt. Lebanon Classic Car Show and Street Festival. As with the Tiger, a good number of the cars made it across the pond from the United Kingdom, bonnets, boots and windscreens intact.
From a scarcity standpoint, Dave Burrows of Mt. Lebanon wowed the crowd with his 65-year-old Jowett Javelin Jupiter.
“It was made in 1951 for the American market because the steel allocation in England, being in short supply, was based on how many cars you sold overseas. It was shown at the Paris auto show, and a guy who liked it was Red Skelton,” Burrows said about the late comedian. “He bought three of them.”
The car also performed well on the track, winning its class at the 24 Hours of LeMans two years in a row. But by 1955, Jowett was out of business.
Austin-Healey is another long-departed marque, with the last one produced in 1972. But the Sprite, with its distinctive headlight formation affectionately known as “bug-eye,” remains a popular model for collectors.
Dave Disque, also of Mt. Lebanon, bought one of the diminutive Sprites for his wife, Betty, on their 15th wedding anniversary, in 1985.
“We’ve restored it a couple of times, done a lot of neat things to it: new engine, new transmission, different brakes and a nice paint job,” he said. “My wife loves it. She absolutely loves it. If fits her perfectly.”
As for Dave, he had his replica Shelby Cobra, which he built himself from a kit over a year’s time, on display next to the Sprite.
Across the street was a more recent British car, Fred Segal’s 1996 Jaguar XJS, the final year for a model that debuted in 1975.
“It’s a sweetheart of a car to drive,” the Squirrel Hill resident said. “It’s really quiet, smooth, powerful, really Jaguaresque.”
The U.K. contingent to Sunday’s car show also included better-known makes such as MG and Triumph, and an example of the TVR, which is expected to resume production in 2017 after an 11-year hiatus. And believe it or not, one more Sunbeam was on display: the ’54 Talbot convertible owned by Mt. Lebanon resident Dan Damratoski.
“The thing that’s neat about this is for the turn signal, they have these things called trafficators. They kind of pull out on the side here,” he said, demonstrating how the devices protrude from the midpoint of the body.
Fortunately for him and fellow motorists who never have seen anything of the sort, his Sunbeam Talbot was fitted with turn signals – the steering wheel moved to the left side, too – for the American road.
One American car on display Sunday that relatively few people have the opportunity to see was Rodney Weaver’s 1988 Zimmer, a neoclassic resembling a late-’20s Duesenberg. He bought it about a dozen years ago after seeing it at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
“I saw it and fell in love with it,” the Mt. Washington resident recalled. “I was supposed to buy my friend’s. His was an ’86. His had 22,000 miles on it. This one at the convention center had only 14,000 miles on it.”
Weaver hasn’t put on too many since, and in the meantime, he has become a consultant for Zimmer, which manufactures what it calls “America’s most luxurious motor cars.”
They certainly fit right in at car shows.