When I was almost 8, Dad brought the Austin Healey home.

Of course he purchased it, but it was as if he acquired a pet for the family, introducing us to it and giving it time to acclimate (he called that breaking in the engine).

I assume the Buick (waiting in the garage like an old mare who would steady the young colt) was new when acquired, but it was a 1953 model and I was a 1950 model, so I wasn’t stocking many articulate memories from then. The Healey is the first and most exciting new car I can recall.

It was a two-tone roadster, red and black. It had snap-on plastic windows and a removable metal bar to support its “tonneau” cover. It came with a soft top but that was no fun: too claustrophobic. Topless it was a dream. There was plenty of room in the front for you to extend your legs, and you rode so low that you experienced every nuance of the road.

It didn’t have synchromesh; Dad showed me how to double-clutch to downshift. He also demonstrated controlled skids at low speeds on the icy streets of the development behind ours. The best lesson he gave me was how to shift gears without the clutch. It’s pretty easy to go from gear to neutral, but to proceed from there takes a careful hand and ear. Windows open. Radio off.

Dad had other cars, a few before and many since. I don’t remember much about the old Austin except the sun roof hole. I do remember the Rover sedan, the rotary-engine Mazda, the seasons of Saabs. But the Austin Healey was the best and stayed the longest. It moved with us from New York to California in 1958 and then from Chula Vista to Larkspur in 1965 (Dad and the boys drove north in it, while Mom and I took the white 1961 Corvair Monza). It got a paint job and became all red, but I can’t remember if that was before or after it was stolen and recovered.

We had a lot of fun in the Healey. We always waved at other roadsters. Dad’s lessons helped make me and Steve car snobs. We disdained American models: Fords with their round tail-lights and then-ahead Chevys. We boycotted German-made vehicles, so we didn’t buy Volkswagens, carefully pronounced Porsche and mocked Carmen (Karmann) Ghias for the Bugs they really were. Steve longed for a Jaguar XKE but we never would have called it that. No: he wanted an “E type.”