Earliest known British C30S

[Bill Murray]

Keith:
I figured you got my drift.
A personal story, though.
In the mid 1980s, through a wierd set of circumstances, I made a ton of money for about six years. Had to do with the SAAB management in Sweden not understanding the then existing American market for "Yuppy-Mobiles". They offered the American management team a five year bonus scheme if we hit certain targets starting in 1981. The targets were modest, the payouts were, in the end, outrageous and I took every pence.

At that time I was enamoured of 1956 Ford pickups and panel trucks. I graduated our High School System in 1957 and every student who was someone had a 1956 Ford pickup (I was then living in a ranching town adjacent to a huge Marine Corps Base).
I, on the other hand had a 1937 Chev Coach and then a 1938 Olds Business Coupe both with very weak mechanicals.

I vowed that if I ever made any real money I would have not one but several variations of 1956 Ford Pickups and Panels.

As I was by the mid 1980s living in Connecticut, a place of salted roads and much rust, I started buying trucks out of my native California. I trusted one of my long time friends who was an Alfa fanatic to check out the trucks I found in various Auto Trader magazines that I had sent to me from California. Sorry, he was then living in California and also working for SAAB.

The long and the short of the story is that he culled through all the vehicles I suggested he check out and purchased some of the best bargains himself and passed on to me adequate but not great vehicles (4 in total). I had given him several names of other collectors in California to help him decide which vehicles were worthy of purchasing and one of them contacted me after a bit and brought me up to speed on the dodge. He was selling the trucks to these self same collectors.

As a side note, I still have two of the four I purchased, one here in Atlanta and one still on a friends farm in Connecticut. Both someday restoration projects.

While I was playing a bit of a joke on you, this chit does happen sometimes and it is often your best mates.
Cheers
Bill