CLASSIC CARS
DAVE WOOLLEY
Sam’s amazing MG adventures Old car enthusiasts have so many memories
With SAM KUCEY
about the old days. It often shows up in their love of different vehicles. Many enthusiasts love the old Mustangs or often old Chevys. I’m a Buick Riviera fan myself. I had the pleasure of talking to Sam Kucey
one day while he was driving his 1950 Woody. He told me it and his 1959 MGA have a wooden frame. Wood! Here is Sam Kucey’s story about these two
amazing vehicles: “I was surprised in 1966, at the age of
16, that I, for the princely sum of $225, had purchased a combination of forest and mountain/iron and wood. “Some of the bones of my first baby – a
1959 MGA -- were mahogany and plywood. The floorboards and tub frame were wood wrapped in tin. “Something appealed to me about that,
and some 20 years after purchasing that car, I picked up my 1951MG–TD – an even more timbered car. A little beauty which I still own today, she owed her elegant structure and quiet underside to the mighty Ash. “Sadly, a few years of sitting in a barn
had failed to allow that wood to breathe and I nursed along some deterioration for quite a few years. Finally, in the winter of 2013, knowing that the National MGA Show was coming to Ottawa in 2014, I decided to rehabilitate some of the wood and paint it. As in so many of these projects, the picture changed with the sad discovery that all the
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wood would have to be replaced. “Jimmy and Leo and the great team
at Majestic Auto accepted the car for a simple paint job and, after many visits and consultations and dragging out all the parts and new pieces I had accumulated over the years, the decision was made to completely rehabilitate my MG. “Every nut and bolt was removed for
the frame-off restoration. I looked after the dashboard and instruments myself and, as luck would have it, I ran into Pat Hawley, a great local Ottawa guitar and ukulele maker. “I had admired the gleam on his ukulele as
we strummed away one night at the Bytown Ukulele Club. Pat had informed me it was a UV polyester. So, when the time came, I looked him up. Pat was able to produce a beautiful finish on the walnut slab I had used to create the new dashboard. I worked with Barry Walker in England to assemble the correct Jaeger instruments and trim, and I spent several long winter Sunday afternoons putting all that together. “Meanwhile, the push was on. I decided to
enter the MG in the May 2014 Rhinebeck Car Show (a beautiful little town two hours out of New York City on the Hudson). I trailered my new little beauty down there (because I was concerned about the seven hour drive), and took away first prize in the MG English Car Division. “It had always been my intention to restore
that car myself, but as we began to take it apart, the significance of the job became evident. In any event, I had learned the lesson
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