Tim Baxter Contact
I was 15 years old, with a brand-new, freshly minted drivers license tucked snugly in my wallet when I first saw the GT6. Life would never be the same.
The Triumph sat dusty and forlorn off to the side of a neighbor's carport, right where it had been abandoned when the neighbors' daughter decided she wanted a “real car”. I had no idea what it was, but it looked cool and at 800 bucks for it it worked for my non-existent budget.
Of course it didn't run. For years it had done nothing but provide shelter for a fairly large family of field mice. But it was soon mine—mouse droppings and all.
Somehow, I overcame my complete and total lack of knowledge about cars. Through sheer teenage determination I disinfected and deodorized, buffed out the paint and got it running. Off I went, neither knowing nor caring what extended periods of inactivity do to ancient British braking systems or how a 1967 Mk1 Triumph GT6 and teenage drivers don't mix. Swing axles? Snap oversteer? Failing calipers? None of that mattered—it ran.
As it turned out, it didn't run for very long. After only a couple of months I was rear-ended by a truck, and that was the end of that Triumph. It was only the beginning for me. I went on to a series of silly little cars in varying states of disrepair: More Triumphs, MG, VWs and old BMWs than anyone could keep track of. If it was cool and cheap, I bought it. Somewhere along the way I actually got reasonably adept at keeping them running.
While I was obsessing over old cars, I also somehow found time to join the Navy for awhile, then take their money (thank you, Uncle Sam) and go to college. In college I learned a lot about beer and enough about journalism to become a reporter for awhile. Somewhere along the way people started paying me to do advertising, graphic design and web work for them, which was fine by me.
Eventually I convinced Tim Suddard since I knew how to do stuff, he should hire me to do stuff for him. Not sure how I pulled that one off, but I'm glad I did.
And that's about it. These days I'm happily married, have the coolest son you're ever likely to meet, and have temporarily sworn off goofy old cars. The current stable includes a Miata (the fun car), a Volvo S40 (the family car) and a Subaru Legacy wagon (the workhorse). Apparently I'm getting sensible in my old age. I think I may need to track down another long-abandoned little car.
