Austin Healey Club of Oregon

All of us have had the experience.  You go to the local store on an errand and you drive the Healey. Before you get out of the car somebody is standing next to it and says something like, “What year is your Healey?  I used to have one when I was in college.  I should’a never sold that car. ”  This interchange occurred about 37 times for me yesterday afternoon.  The local Bales grocery store had a Show and Shine car show in their parking lot.  Things were a little slow at Casa de Schneider so I drove the Healey down to the show and parked it.  

   I have included a shot of my Healey next to a very nice        1960 Corvette.  On the other side of my car was a  DeThomaso Pantera.  Both pretty cool cars but guess which  car got the most conversation?  Healeys are wonderful ego boosters.  I used the opportunity to  talk up the forthcoming ABFM.  Notice the poster on my  windshield.  I was also allowed to install another ABFM poster on the event registration table.  See everybody next weekend.

Austin Healey Club of Oregon members planning to attend the August meeting faced a tough challenge getting to the meeting venue. The meeting was held at Gary Jackson’s beautiful home at Eagle Crest near Sisters, OR. The challenge faced by the travelers was extreme afternoon temperature, well into triple digits. Two groups of members left separately from Portland, two Healeys on Friday and three cars on Saturday. However, both groups were impeded by the high temperatures.

The Koebers and Hands started out in their Healeys about 3:15 PM Friday afternoon. George and Jaci covered only about four miles before the car quit with vapor lock and a fouled fuel filter. George contacted other members of the Koeber clan and was rescued when they brought a trailer to transport the Healey back home. Read more »

Just a reminder, if you haven’t registered yet, you can register on-line at http://www.abfm-pdx.com/2008/doreg.htm

Click for large view

Driving from Portland, Oregon to Redmond, Oregon is a trip of about 170 miles. The high point of the journey is the Santiam Pass at 4817 feet. If you examine the photo to the left (click to enlarge) you can see that my 1960 BT7 decided to make an unscheduled rest top just at the summit of the pass.

It was running beautifully for over 100 miles, purring along, when at the very top of the summit is started to miss and then die. Fortunately there was plenty of room on the side of the road to pull over. To make a long story short, it was about 105 degrees F. and the result was vapor lock. John Carter and Mark Schneider continued on, leaving me to wait for the car to cool off. It takes a while to cool off at 105 degrees. I finally got going again and pulled into our destination about an hour after everyone else. At that point I think I was suffering from vapor lock. There was a tub of ice with bottles of beer in it. I skipped the beer and shoved my hands into the ice.

Read more »

Northwest Meet September 18-21 registration form

Aug 2, 2008 -Tour to Centralia, WA with over night at Olympic Club Historic Hotel, Pub and Movie Theater

The day began cloudy and guess what? It pretty much stayed that way through the tour. We began our tour at Milepost 7 on I-5 at the Burger King at 10:00 am with tour guides John and Judy Carter. After a short stint on I-5, we re-gathered at Milepost 27 at the Rebel Truck Stop. We then began our back roads tour to Centralia.

This is the old Pacific Highway which pretty much parallels the freeway. But most of the time, you wouldn’t know it for the trees, farms, etc. We drove north through the towns of Kalama and Carrols, then through the heart of Kelso. We continued north, paralleling the freeway until we reached Castle Rock. This was our lunch stop. Hattie’s Restaurant graciously accommodated our large crowd (15). It is a lovely, ‘country’ style restaurant, decorated with hat paraphernalia (hats, hat boxes, etc.) We took our time and had a great visit, then time to go; John and Judy had arranged a tour of the old Jackson Pioneer house, so we had to get going. Unfortunately, John had lost the ignition key for his Healey somewhere between parking and eating. While several looked outside, some had time to check out the gallery next door. Luckily, John found his key on the sidewalk, so it was back to the highway. This time we headed east on Highway 504, toward Mt. St. Helens.

Read more »

Aug. 2008 Healey Northwest Newsletter

Issue posted at http://issuu.com/healey-oregon1/docs/august_news

Austin Healey Club of Oregon Grill Badge: $40.00

Description: Heavy enamel, approximately 3 inches by 3 inches, comes with two mounting screws to mount to grill badge.  Requires a mounting clamp.

To order or get more information contact via email Jaci Koeber or Carole Trenko