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MG TD TF 1500 - TD/c-8151: Previously unknown pics found

I’m so excited. These last few days I’ve been going through thousands of family pictures, negatives and 35mm slides. A task I haven’t wanted to undertake but it’s time to close out another chapter of me, my mom, dad and my sisters lives. I being the last survivor of this branch of the clan.

Today I struck a small goldmine in that I have found both B&W as well as color 35mm slides of dad’s TD/c. The pics include the cars ill-fated trip from Biloxi Mississippi back to Sacramento CA when it was caught in a sandstorm in the New Mexico Badlands. It ingested a great deal of grit because dad had decided to run without air cleaners. After an impromptu overhaul in a motel parking lot in Bakersfield he continued to limp it on into Sacramento and promptly stopped at Oxford Motors and traded it on the spot for a new AH 100-4. I have also found color 35mm slides if it. The first pics of this car I’ve ever seen. I’ve also found quite a few pics of his 1931 P1 Rolls Royce towncar. The very last US built Rolls (body by Brewster). It wouldn’t fit in a 28’ garage he always told me. I still Ecstacy off of her and she stands nearly 8” tall. I also found in the attic two new sets (4 ea) of nickel plated headlamps for the Rolls as well.

Also among the photos are rare glimpses of his involvement as an early member of the Sacramento Sports Car Club (SCCC). Pics that include many T-series, early XKs , Healeys, ACs and others I’m not familiar with. I have probably another 5000 slides to look through as I thin the herd to a manageable level and prepare to deseminate many to distant family members to fill in gaps to our family’s genealogy.

Sadly the projection bulb burned out in my dad’s 1950s slide projector and I don’t know if I can even source new bulbs. I was going to try and take pics of them on my smartphone to share. I don’t even know if there are real photoshops anymore that cam make prints from my slides. Or if there is a service that can digitize all of these memories before the degrade to the point of being worthless. I have generational pics going all the way bay to the mid 1800s that I need to preserve.

Next up, thousands of feet in 8mm home movies. Who knows what treasures lay within.

I will post pics as they become available if they are of interest to anyone

Bill Chasser
TD/c-8151
W A Chasser

You can have the 8mm movies converted to a DVD. They can even add appropriate background music. Search the web for such a service. Then you can download them to Youtube as appropriate and we can all enjoy them. I did that years ago but there is nothing anyone would want to see.
Ed
efh Haskell

Slides can be scanned and digitized. There are services which do it for you.

No affiliation nor experience with this, but it's one that a quick Google search came up with:

https://www.scancafe.com/services/slide-scanning?gclid=Cj0KCQiAv_HSBRCkARIsAGaSsrByRpX5qYO1T9o8TKa5jOkLhpZedN38gC4uuB7_zxfXTXyIqK5FHOoaAmUTEALw_wcB

Or you can get an adapter of the type that used to be included with older flatbed scanners to do yourself:

https://www.ebay.com/i/222780090378?chn=ps

It will be great to see some of what you've found!

BobbyG
Bobby Galvez

Bill - I see you refer to your car as a TD/c - do you mean TD/C? I have never seen TD/c in any factory document, and would be glad to know where it is called that, so I can add the information to my notes on Mark II cars.

Thanks.

Tom Lange
MGT Repair
t lange

Bill...I'm considerably older than you and I must admit I'm extremely jealous of what you've found. I have a sister (older) left, and very few photos to carry on the family memories. What I wouldn't give for a find like that! I will mention that I found a couple very old pics (both badly faded)of both my grandparents, both deceased prior to my birth in '38. I located a company in Indiana and paid them to "redo" the pics. You see, they are the only pictures ever found of my ancestors. They did a nice job, and I was able to give younger family copies of ancestors they never had seen, to preserve for next generation.
Side question. How would I inquire regarding trying to locate a '54 TF I sold to a fellow from Indianapolis back in70's? He flew into Mansfield,Ohio and bought the car, then drove it back to Indiana. I regret I failed to keep any records and would love to track it down to obtain some record and pics of it. He paid me $1400.00, but made the check out for only $14.00. I failed to notice until several hours later! You can imagine my despair until finally the check did clear for correct amount...after talking with both his wife and his bank. Took several days and sure taught me a well remembered lesson!
Sorry...did not intend to highjack this...sorry!
Rich
R.M. gardner

Bill...I'm considerably older than you and I must admit I'm extremely jealous of what you've found. I have a sister (older) left, and very few photos to carry on the family memories. What I wouldn't give for a find like that! I will mention that I found a couple very old pics (both badly faded)of both my grandparents, both deceased prior to my birth in '38. I located a company in Indiana and paid them to "redo" the pics. You see, they are the only pictures ever found of my ancestors. They did a nice job, and I was able to give younger family copies of ancestors they never had seen, to preserve for next generation.
Side question. How would I inquire regarding trying to locate a '54 TF I sold to a fellow from Indianapolis back in70's? He flew into Mansfield,Ohio and bought the car, then drove it back to Indiana. I regret I failed to keep any records and would love to track it down to obtain some record and pics of it. He paid me $1400.00, but made the check out for only $14.00. I failed to notice until several hours later! You can imagine my despair until finally the check did clear for correct amount...after talking with both his wife and his bank. Took several days and sure taught me a well remembered lesson! Any suggestions?
Sorry...did not intend to highjack this...sorry!
Rich
R.M. gardner

Bill, I use one of these to digitise my ast collection of slides and negatives (b&w and colour).
You have to them one by one but gives excellent results.
http://plustek.com/uk/products/film-and-photo-scanners/opticfilm-8100/

David
David Wardell

RM. I have quite a collection of generational photos. Sadly many I don’t recognize as to who they are beyond the fourth generation back. They are all precious none the less.

Re searching for your TF. Since it changed states and I presume you don’t know the plate number it was changed to in Indiana you might be able to do a search through the Indiana DMV using the ViN. Contact the Indiana DMV and see if they can help. The likely scenario would be if there was still a record in that state they would send an inquiry to the owner that would let him respond to you if he/she were so inclined. Good luck in your search.

Ed, Bobby and and David thank you for your comments and links. I will have to investigate further as I would like to digitize all the pics not only for myself but also for extended family on other branches of the family tree. I also need to find someone in the family who would have interest in maintaining the archived pics. So that they are preserved for future generations. I never married nor have children so it is important to find a distant relative to assume these precious moments in time

I was ecstatic to find more pics of dad’s car(s). The TD/c photos in particular because they actually show what SSG paint looked like.
I was surprised to see it was much darker than I expected to see
I only had one B&W picture of dad’s car prior to this discovery. As soon as I can get them copied I will share them here. I think many people here might find some of them of interest even Chris may wish to use a few on his site as they do depict original cars in there original colors, as well as other details. It will be something to further consider in conversation with him.

Cheers

Bill Chasser
TD/c-8151
W A Chasser

Well I found bulbs for dad’s vintage slide projector. Rare as hens teeth to find so I bought a 1/2 dozen to have on hand delivery by next week. In the meantime I found one of those pan-a-vue slide viewers but couldn’t find the cord. Ugh a day later I discover it also works with batteries. Success and back to looking a more slides until the GE245 bulb blew in It. Drat drat and triple drat!!! Now I’ve itdered bulb for it as well. More TD/c pics

Bill Chasser
TD-4824
W A Chasser

I have been hard at it going through several thousand slides of dad’s
What I thought was going to be a gold mine of pics went bust rather quickly as no more pics of his car specifically came to light I will share what I found. They show SSG being much darker than examples I have seen. The one spray out I and formula I received from Bob Howard is very close to what is seen in the pics. I will be mixing a sample of his and the formula received from Bill Hite for comparison and make a decision as to which is the better match based on the paint I have left on the doors. I also located the KOTR headlight buckets which still have paint on them as well. I had sent another pair to the powder coater last summer so I have four pieces that still carry original paint.

I eventually only found four pics that had his car or part of his car in them. These were captured on my iPhone as viewed from the image projected upon a projection screen. The quality may not be as sharp as the original imAge eventually alle the pics I have chosen to save will be digitized




W A Chasser

Another


W A Chasser

This picture was taken on dad’s car final ill-fated trip. I believe this taken somewhere in the Badlands of New New Mexico. Likely before encountering a sand storm. I’m sure these images will be much sharper once I can properly digitized them. This is all of the pics of TD/c 8151. I was hoping to find more but I’m happy to find these just the same.

Bill Chasser
TD/c-8151


W A Chasser

May not be many but oh what treasures!
L E D LaVerne

One detail I wish I had was that of the hub caps. Dad had made up brass machine turned inserts to cover the centers and was sandwiched between the medallions and the caps. Two sets were made, ten in total. One set went to his car the other set went to Bud McCormick’s TD/C (serial number unknown) in Carmichael Ca. Bud was also a member of the SCCC and they combined their cars into a team effort for competing either in tandem or the two of them in one car as driver and navigator/mechanic in the case of hillclimbs and Time & Dstance Rally’s that were very popular in the day. Bud owned his car up until his death and then the car’s whereabouts were lost. It was likely almond green but may have been repainted BRG (it was hard to tell). I was purported to be 100% untouched and original. Restorers would seek the car out to verify details for their own restorations. The last time I saw Bud’s car was 1976 sitting in poor condition under an oak tree in his backyard. The hubcap inserts were still on the car. Dad and I had gone for a visit and I was hoping to own it but it wasn’t for sale. “Someday I’ll restore it”, he’d say. Sadly for him, someday never came. I believe Bud passed away in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s. If his car sounds familiar to anyone I’d like to hear from you. The hubcaps would have been the car's givesignature to its heritage and previous ownership.

I still have boxes of pics to sort through and movies. Perhaps more tidbits will surface. Still searching for dad’s SCCA logbooks for the TD and Healy but I’m not holding out much hope at this point.

Bill Chasser
TD-4834

W A Chasser

Found three more partial images today. One just barely showing the grill and part of a front wing in color, the second a view looking out the windshield showing the position of the mirror on the wing and what I originally thought was a chrome KOTR headlight bucket. But now I think it is painted. Really hard to tell. Finally another B&W photo looking out through the windshield showing the front half of the bonnet and a Motometer gauge with the MG logo on the panel inside the glass. All the slides have been reviewed. I don’t know how many there were but the ones I discarded weighed in at 15.8 pounds. That’s a heck of a lot of slides.

Next up several large stacks of home movies. Popcorn anyone?

Bill Chasser
TD/c-8151
W A Chasser

Bill, CaliColor may be able to help with your slides. Costco is a pretty good source for converting your 8mm to DVD. Lucky you finding all those pictures. Sometimes a blessing and a curse when you don't have someone to relate the story that goes with it. Hope you're doing ok.
Keith Yarbrough(TD 1275)

Thanks Keith I’m about 90% in my recovery. I’ll research them both and see what the costs will be. Still have a massive amount of pics to go through and the movies. Both on 8mm, Super 8 whatever that is and 16mm. I also have hours of reel to reel tape and cassettes to digitize as well.

I talked to my Aunt (dad’s sister) who is the only remaining family member who has intimate knowledge of both dad’s TD/c and Healey 100-4 that replaced it. I was under the mistaken impression that the pic of a Blue 100-4 I found was his because it was the focal point of the pic. However my aunt said it was red with white coves. Two of the Sacramento Sports Car Club (SCCC) driving event pics do show parts of his car. One shows the front and the other shows the back. Wish I had 3/4 views of both as close ups.

My aunt also told me about dad’s spirited driving style where she rode shotgun in trips to Clearlake via Hwy 16 (the Rumsey Route) and the other through Napa and Calistoga to Clearlake. She said she was terrified on the Calistoga run with dad broadsliding through the switchbacks and “twisties”. I told her if I end up dragging dad’s car with me to be trimmed back east while I take a vacation this summer I’ll go down to give her another spirited ride. She wasn’t appreciative of my offer but would be glad to take a slow cruise. LOL.

Call me or stop by when you find time

Bill Chasser
TD/c-8151
W A Chasser

I too ran into some old pics of my dad's of early Laguna Seca SCCA. Nobody left to tell me anything about it.
Keith Yarbrough(TD 1275)

Keith

Wow maybe our dad’s crossed paths back in the day. When was your dad associated with SCCA?

Bill Chasser
TD/c-8151
W A Chasser

This thread was discussed between 15/01/2018 and 24/01/2018

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