There were many summer days that Garrie and David Simpson and their children would be gathered with other car enthusiasts around the track at Mosport Speedway just north of Bowmanville, listening to the sound of engines roaring and feeling the pace of the cars.
Garrie and David in their Austin-Healey, with Tansley Woods
General Manager Jo-Anna Gurd standing aside.
It was always their happy place and they spent nearly every weekend there during racing season.
As they sat in the 1960 Austin-Healey they bought in Hamilton in 1962 and passed down to their son not long ago, Mosport was their reply when asked where the open road would take them with the convertible top down if they were to drive out of the lot.
Their son Scott and their grandson were honoured the feature the Simpson’s beloved car during a late September car show at The Village of Tansley Woods, where Garrie and David now live. Many an eye lit up when they fell upon the shiny black vehicle – favoured by the likes of James Bond in so many 007 movies – and both Garrie and David were beaming the entire day before the skies opened up with rain.
“We used to rally around the backroads of Ontario in that car,” David says in fond remembrance, admitting liked any opportunity to push the boundaries of speed. He recalls the day they first took it for a test drive, and “that was it.”
Growing up, their son Scott always wanted to drive the car and Garrie says that he’s been driving it “carefully” with his father at his side since he was a teenager. David can no longer safely drive on his own these days, so it has been passed down as a beautiful heirloom.
To feature the car during the show at Tansley Woods was a special opportunity to reminisce, the Simpsons say, and the smiles upon their faces a month later are as a bright as they must’ve been the day they drove that beautiful piece of machinery off the Hamilton lot.
