After almost 38 years, I’m back in the Tiger game. Sadly however, it comes because of the death last December of my 92 year old father, Charles Russell, who had kept his Tiger for the last 43 years.
Back in the early ‘70s, both my father and I had Tigers here in Los Angeles but I sold mine in 1978. In June of 1973, I became the editor of Tiger Tales while I was still a junior in college and continued on with that for about a year and a half. What a trip down memory lane it was for me to see the archived Tiger Tales going back to my involvement with it! It brought back great memories of time spent with my father working on cars, $1,500 Tigers and $.50 gas. I have to believe that many of the people from back in those days have unfortunately moved on as well-John Snead, Terry Slattery, Darrell Gilman, Lou Anderson and others.
Speaking of Lou Anderson, and I seem to recall that my father told me that Lou had passed away several years ago, what a nice man he was. Lou was an engineer and was an unlikely hot rodder-soft spoken, well groomed, horned rimmed glasses, neatly dressed. I’ve done a little surfing on this site already and I saw that someone likened Lou’s Ackerman angle solution (Tiger Tales-August, 1973) as a Rube Goldberg approach to this problem and perhaps by today’s standards, it was. However in my opinion, if it wasn’t for Lou, there may not be a Dale’s Restorations and others. Thinking back to the Tiger’s pitiful turning radius, I remember very vividly Lou showing everyone at one of the Tiger Club meetings what his car could do. At a minimum, anyone that’s come up with a front suspension design owes Lou a debt of gratitude for first figuring out and then designing a solution to this flaw.
Concerning my dad’s car, it’s a ’66 MK1 and the VIN number is 382002547 for those that keep track of these things. My dad was the original California hot rodder and going back to his ’32 and ’40 Ford roadsters, he never liked things stock. This carried over to his Tiger as he had the rear fenders radiused, built a custom dash with new gauges, moved some things around in the engine compartment, experimented off and on with a chopped windshield, etc. In 1977 at Tigers United IV, his car was second in the Modified Class and he was tied for the runner-up spot for the Lord Rootes Trophy, an award he would win the next year at Tigers United V. I would venture to say that with today’s high end restorations, his car couldn’t even drive the trophy to the awards ceremony. Still, his scrap book has some very cool letters of congratulations from Ian Garrad and Lord Jeffrey Rootes himself. As awesome as your car may be, do you have one of these?
Right before he died, he was talking about what he wanted to do to the car to get it back on the road and my youngest son has expressed an interest in helping me do this. The circle of life, huh?
Currently I’m trying to finish restoring a ’70 Boss 302 Mustang and I’m active on that site (www.boss302.com) by the same forum name of Mechachy. I’m not sure when I can turn my attention to the Tiger but hope to do so sometime this year.
Glad to be back!
Charlie Russell, Jr.
Back in the early ‘70s, both my father and I had Tigers here in Los Angeles but I sold mine in 1978. In June of 1973, I became the editor of Tiger Tales while I was still a junior in college and continued on with that for about a year and a half. What a trip down memory lane it was for me to see the archived Tiger Tales going back to my involvement with it! It brought back great memories of time spent with my father working on cars, $1,500 Tigers and $.50 gas. I have to believe that many of the people from back in those days have unfortunately moved on as well-John Snead, Terry Slattery, Darrell Gilman, Lou Anderson and others.
Speaking of Lou Anderson, and I seem to recall that my father told me that Lou had passed away several years ago, what a nice man he was. Lou was an engineer and was an unlikely hot rodder-soft spoken, well groomed, horned rimmed glasses, neatly dressed. I’ve done a little surfing on this site already and I saw that someone likened Lou’s Ackerman angle solution (Tiger Tales-August, 1973) as a Rube Goldberg approach to this problem and perhaps by today’s standards, it was. However in my opinion, if it wasn’t for Lou, there may not be a Dale’s Restorations and others. Thinking back to the Tiger’s pitiful turning radius, I remember very vividly Lou showing everyone at one of the Tiger Club meetings what his car could do. At a minimum, anyone that’s come up with a front suspension design owes Lou a debt of gratitude for first figuring out and then designing a solution to this flaw.
Concerning my dad’s car, it’s a ’66 MK1 and the VIN number is 382002547 for those that keep track of these things. My dad was the original California hot rodder and going back to his ’32 and ’40 Ford roadsters, he never liked things stock. This carried over to his Tiger as he had the rear fenders radiused, built a custom dash with new gauges, moved some things around in the engine compartment, experimented off and on with a chopped windshield, etc. In 1977 at Tigers United IV, his car was second in the Modified Class and he was tied for the runner-up spot for the Lord Rootes Trophy, an award he would win the next year at Tigers United V. I would venture to say that with today’s high end restorations, his car couldn’t even drive the trophy to the awards ceremony. Still, his scrap book has some very cool letters of congratulations from Ian Garrad and Lord Jeffrey Rootes himself. As awesome as your car may be, do you have one of these?
Right before he died, he was talking about what he wanted to do to the car to get it back on the road and my youngest son has expressed an interest in helping me do this. The circle of life, huh?
Currently I’m trying to finish restoring a ’70 Boss 302 Mustang and I’m active on that site (www.boss302.com) by the same forum name of Mechachy. I’m not sure when I can turn my attention to the Tiger but hope to do so sometime this year.
Glad to be back!
Charlie Russell, Jr.
