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Like most car guys, Terry Trovato fondly remembers his first car: a 1947 Sunbeam Talbot with right-hand drive. He bought the car at the age of 18, just before heading off to college at the University of Kentucky. Even though it was a special car, the ’47 Sunbeam can’t hold a candle to another special car from Trovato’s past.
Trovato and his college buddies all tooled around the UK campus in British automobiles – MGs, Sunbeams, Austin-Healeys, pretty much anything British.
“These were the cars we thought were cool growing up,” says Trovato, now retired in Natchez, Miss., after 34 years in the oil industry.
As the years went by after college, Trovato and most of his buddies eventually sold their British automobiles when the new wore off and the cars got ornery. But Trovato’s best buddy – Jamie Taylor – decided to keep his 1960 Austin-Healey 3000.
Taylor put the car in a barn on his 500-acre farm, planning to restore it “some day.” But tragically, some day never came; Taylor died in a farm accident when a piece of heavy equipment he was operating rolled on top of him in 1996. Taylor’s wife sold the car while settling the estate.
Trovato says he often thought about Jamie – but not much about his car – for years. But one day while “poking around on the Internet,” Trovato typed in “1960 Austin-Healey 3000” and was surprised at what he saw. Right there on one of the British car sites was an ad for a 1960 Austin-Healey 3000, black with a red interior, located in Harrodsburg, Ky.
Trovato told his wife about the coincidence and began to research the car more. “I think I’ve found Jamie’s Austin-Healey!” Trovato shouted after confirming the VIN. Without hesitation, she replied, “Well, go get it!”
Trovato drove 750 miles from his home in Natchez, Miss., to look at the car in the summer of 2000. “It was in pieces,” Trovato says, adding the interior was shot, the tires were flat and rust and dust owned the car. Still, Trovato loaded the pieces onto a trailer and brought Jamie’s car home.
“I always said I would never get a project car,” Trovato says. “But because it was Jamie’s I did it.”
Trovato enlisted the help of a couple of craftsmen during the two-year restoration project, completed in 2002. The car still has the original 132-horsepower inline six-cylinder engine with twin SU carburetors and a four-speed manual transmission with an electric overdrive switch. “When I got it we put a big wrench on it and turned the engine over,” he says. “We were lucky.”
Today, the odometer reads only about 60,000 miles, due primarily to decades of its life in a barn. Trovato says he kept as much of the original car as possible. The rag top is long gone, but Trovato still has the original hard top. Surprisingly, Trovato says he didn’t have much trouble finding parts during the restoration.
“Us geezers,” Trovato says, “we all want the cars back we had as kids.”
When brand new in 1960, Jamie’s car cost $3,050, plus $300 for the optional hard top. Other options at the time included wire wheels, a laminated windscreen, a heater, an adjustable steering column and two-tone paint. Recently at auction, Trovato says he saw a 1960 Austin-Healey 3000 go for $56,000, a price he finds “amazing.” Records show that a total of 42,926 Austin-Healey 3000s were built from March 1959 until 1967.
Trovato says the restoration project was a tribute to his college friend, a labor of love that preserves Jamie’s memory and keeps it close.
“Every single week I take it out… I think the ghost of Jamie Taylor is with me sitting in the passenger seat,” Trovato laughs. “I think he’d be very happy to know his old buddy is driving his car down the Natchez Trace Parkway.”
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