Taking Ill Mt. Lebanon Collector Has Car Bug
T
he Allentown, PA car collector was an older man, and he opened the squeaky door of his barn, surprising the visitor with its contents. The barn was full of old sports cars, including the one Paul Belluomini had come there for—a 1968 Triumph 250, in need of restoration. “He was sicker than me,” Belluomini said of the Allentown collector, from whom he bought
“The car was never restored. The paint was faded out, the interior was rotted away and the car was home to lots of mice. The engine barely ran, and I had to tow the car home,” Belluomini said. “The suspension was seized up—it was rusted solid from sitting so long.” But the MG had never been wrecked, and it had very little rust on it. It was an ugly orange color, but that has since been fixed, and it is now
MGB GT
fun to drive and they have a lot of personality, not like a modern car,” Belluomini said. “They’re basically hand-built cars, with chrome gauges, leather interior, and wool carpeting.” While his MG is ship-shape, his Triumph has a way to go before it is car cruise-worthy. The vehicle had a lot of body rust on it when Belluomini got it. Right now it is painted and has its suspension installed, with about 50 percent of the restoration complete. He is working to have the car drivable by fall and finished by this spring. Like many classic car owners who restore old vehicles for their own pleasure, thoughts of actually making money on the Triumph aren’t foremost in his mind, though the year and model of the car make it rarer than others. While Belluomini will probably put more than $12,000 into the car before it is finished, it could be worth $28,000 to $35,000 when it is done. You can’t really put a dollar figure on the enjoyment he gets out his classics, in restoring them and showing them. The best part of
Triumph TR250 the Triumph for $2,300, eight years ago. “It’s a sickness,” he said, laughing. The Mt. Lebanon car collector is a science teacher at Hempfield Middle School by profession, but a classic British sports car fan by passion. He jokingly refers to his hobby of collecting and restoring classic cars as a sickness, as in, once you get the bug, it never goes away. He’s working on restoring the Triumph 250, but in the meantime, he enjoys a fully restored 1975 MG BGT that he bought three years ago from a dealer in Detroit, MI. Since that time, he’s restored the MG, which he got as a project for which he planned a full restoration. “It’s a hobby for me. I find it very relaxing,” Belluomini said. “Over the years, I’ve had a bunch of British cars.” Still, it took about three years for Belluomini to finish restoring the Triumph. He recently installed the car’s rear axle, completing the project. But of course, the work on the vehicle has been much of the fun of ownership of it, and that’s why Belluomini was looking for an original car that had never been restored when he found the 1975 MG BGT. 16 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE |
a dark blue color known as Blue Royale. That car, in a way, brought the collector full circle to the start of his hobby, many years ago. Belluomini, 59, has been a convert to British sports car fandom since he was young. As a college student he bought his first car, which was a convertible MG that he got with money he earned during the summer in college. He has always enjoyed the way these British classics handle on the road, which is unlike most other cars. “When you’re driving, they hug the curves,” he said. But what is it about British sports cars that so captivates Belluomini? It might be the time travel that they enable a driver to do. “They take you back when you were young; it’s probably something psychological. They are
Mt. Lebanon
owning the MG, he says, is driving it. He tries to take the car out once a week throughout the year, except during winter. He always goes to the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park, and he also makes it to smaller local car cruises. He doesn’t think of the sports cars he owns as an investment. “I do it because I like it. I bought these cars because of the lines—they’re good-looking cars,” he said.
By Jonathan Barnes