Terry’s Car Stories #1

When I worked for McMillan & Saunders Ltd, in Malton, Ontario, I once sold a used TR6 to a young guy. He didn’t drive manual shift at the time but still wanted to buy the car. He asked if I would take him for a test drive to show him how it performed, which I gladly did.

We drove away from the lot, along a two lane road, at a fair speed, of course not exceeding the speed limit, with me changing gears rapidly to show the performance and agility of the car. As we came to an intersection where I had decided to make a left turn we came across a large tractor trailer also making a left in the opposite direction. As there was only soft shoulders on both sides of the road I proceeded to make my turn. Only to find a Volvo 164 speeding along the soft shoulder and passing the truck. I applied my brakes quickly to try to avoid what was obviously going to be a collision. To no avail, the Volvo didn’t see us until it was too late and slammed into the front of the TR6.

The TR6 was fairly badly damaged to the front right, but the front of the Volvo was pushed in and the bumper lay on the ground. As it happened the Volvo in question was the demonstrator of the President of the company and was being driven by the assistant parts manager.

There were no repercussions against me but the assistant parts manager was severely reprimanded for bad driving.

After getting towed back to the dealership, the young guy who was thinking of buying the car said “when can it be fixed and when could I get delivery of the car?” I told him about a week to ten days. He agreed and bought the car. He then asked if I would deliver the car to him, I said yes, only to find out that he lived in Barrie about 100 kilometres away.

Approximately two weeks later I drove the car to Barrie,  north of Toronto and handed the ecstatic owner the keys. He asked me to give a short lesson in driving a manual shift car and to show him we him the controls. Which I did and then left on the bus.  We must have done the repairs well as we never heard from him again.