"I bought my Austin America in September of 2001.  I probably paid too much for it -- that Union Jack on the roof is very well-done, and must have cost the previous owner a good bit.

When I flew down to Florida to take posession of the thing, I found that the owner's description had been accurate. Apart from a complete respray and the Union Jack, the car was quite original, right down to the tires.  At some point the fuel pump had failed and been replaced with one bolted in the engine compartment, leaving a largish hole into the bottom of the trunk,where the original fuel pump had been.  Water and debris had entered here,and two small rust holes had developed at the lowest points in the trunk floor.  These had been treated -- there's no rust in evidence now -- and painted, but not closed up. Presumably this is because the fuel-pump hole
also hasn't been closed up; the water can just drain right out.  When you live in Florida, I suppose you can do things like that.

My plan for getting the car back home was to load it onto Amtrak's Auto Train.  This train runs between Sanford, Florida (just north of Orlando) and Lorton, Virginia (just south of Washington); they load your car into a car-carrier, and you travel in a sleeper car.  The point of this train is that, near any holiday, I-95 from Washington to Florida is one big traffic jam for over 800 miles.  (North of Washington, it's a traffic jam *all* the time; but the train doesn't run there because the Auto Train cars can't fit through the tunnels.)

Catching the train entailed driving the car from West Palm Beach to Orlando,a distance of about 190 miles.  Soon after we set out, it started raining,and every stereotypical British-car electrical thing happened.  The windshield wipers worked, but could not be turned off again.  The ignition shorted out.  The fuel pump blew a fuse (and before I discovered that, I was on the side of the road, manually (which is to say orally) blowing fuel out of the thing, etc.) The headlights worked, but while one of them came on immediately, the other took a few seconds to come around.  Of course, I can't duplicate a single one of these problems in the garage, so presumably they're still all there.

What aren't there are those factory-original tires.  We eventually made it into Orlando, where we were staying for the night.  As we pulled into the hotel's parking lot, I noticed a pronounced lumpiness to the ride.  In the light of day, I examined the tires and found that one of them was, in fact, lumpy.  I replaced it with the spare -- which was also 30 years old and rotten, but at least round -- and we headed off to Sanford, about 20 miles away.  Within five miles, the tire blew on the Interstate at about 50 mph.  I wrestled the car onto the shoulder and called a tow truck. Total elapsed time, purchase to first tow: about 23 hours.

We replaced the tires (for the princely sum of about $130) and re-scheduled for the following day's Auto Train.  From then, we had no problems other than that the exhaust pipe and the choke and handbrake cables all broke.  I wound up repairing the exhaust pipe in a motel parking lot using some wire coat hangers; and I was grinning the whole time.

I was afraid that the coat-hanger exhaust system would fail pretty quickly. Amtrak can reject your car if there's anything seriously wrong with it, and wide-open exhaust probably qualifies.  I wanted to make sure that thing got on the train with no further problems, so I was pretty careful.  As it happens, I was able to drive the car around for weeks with the improvised exhaust, and there have been no further incidents with the car.

I have not been able to give the car the attention it really deserves, so it's spent most of its time since then sitting in the garage and being driven for a few miles every week or two just to keep the tires round.  I have done some preventative maintenance on it, replacing rotting hoses and the like, but I've otherwise left it alone.

My plans are to replace the master cylinder -- the brakes are, well, funky --  the exhaust system (I eventually welded together something using parts from Auto Zone, but it's not pretty), and most of the rubber seals, and then to drive the car on nice days.

It's far too hot here to have an un-air-conditioned car in daily use in the summer, and as the thing has so far escaped any serious rust damage, I'm reluctant to drive the thing in winter.  I'll also probably take it to local British car shows, even in its current condition, where I'd be sure to sweep the ADO16 division.  (Unfortunately, of course, British car shows being what they are, I'll wind up in the 'everything not Triumph, MG, Jaguar, or Rolls-Royce' division and wind up losing to some guy with a 1950 Ford Anglia that's spent the last fifty years in a plastic bag in his garage.)

Ah well, I count it as money well-spent.  The car is such a technical curiosity (what with the sideways engine, the automatic transmission, the Hydrolastic suspension, and the ribbon speedometer) that it deserves a place in anyone's garage.  It attracts more attention than any other car I've ever had -- and that includes another America, but one without a Union Jack on the roof.  I've got people blowing their horns and yelling at me in traffic,and only about a quarter of them are yelling about all the smoke coming from under the car (it comes from the improvised crankcase breather).  I just smile and wave at them, and sputter away."

Tino D'Amico

www.tinotopia.com