WELLESLEY, Mass. — Wheels of Wellesley 2025 took place on Sunday, May 18th. The event was sponsored by the Modifiers Car Club in conjunction with the Wellesley Celebrations Committee and was part of a full weekend of activities.

Central Street (Route 135) in Wellesley Square was closed off to traffic, and vehicles parked on both sides of the street. Many stores and restaurants were open, though there were fewer food trucks than in prior years.

Several NEMO members were in attendance. Bob Brownell drove his 1963 Austin Mini 850, Wendy Birchmire brought her 1990 JDM Mini Mayfair, and I drove my 1950 Morris Minor. Other British cars included Garry Hampton’s 1960 Triumph TR3A, John Base’s rare 1941 Austin 8 Tourer export model, a 1977 MGB V8, a 1968 Triumph TR250, a 1951 MG TD, a 1939 MG TA, and a pair of Jaguar E-types.

Former NEMO member Paul Saulnier had a new hot rod Mini that a prior owner built from a 1989 Austin Cooper S. The 1,380 A Series engine was modified to include a BMW K Series 16 valve twin-cam cylinder head, Omega Pistons, four Kawasaki ZZ-R 1100 C carburetors, H-beam connecting rods and a straight-cut gearbox. Other mechanicals were upgraded and included braided Aeroquip brake hoses, negative camber dialed in via special lower suspension arms, an Adjusta-Ride suspension kit, and Gmax uprated shock absorbers. The car has a sunroof, plus Paul’s preferred right-hand drive.

Per usual, there were plenty of American muscle cars, and a tastefully done 1939 Ford Pickup Hot Rod.

I always gravitate toward the classics and unusual cars. There are several regulars that attend many MetroWest shows, including a 1911 Model T owned by Bob Richards and a Korean War-vintage army Jeep. Kids were invited sit in the Model T and Jeep, as well as the occasional adult.

Another car that caught my eye was a 1960 Buick LeSabre. The Buick was impossible to miss with its bright blue paint job and sculpted lines. My choice for the most unusual vehicle was a beautifully restored 1939 Chevy 1.5 ton flatbed truck. The truck doors were decorated for “Shady Acre Farm” in North Attleboro, and the wooden bed held a restored John Deere tractor of similar vintage and was raised to about 35 degrees.

As regular readers know, I favor events featuring multiple marques in a wide range of vintages. Wheels of Wellesley never disappoints in this respect. I don’t recall ever seeing a 1947 Studebaker Land Cruiser before. The prewar Land Cruiser ended production in 1942 and the postwar model was unveiled in the spring of 1946. It had a completely new body styled by Raymond Loewy with a space-age looking hood ornament and front marker lights. The trunk lid is streamlined, unlike other cars of the era which retained a prewar look.

Other cars that caught my attention included the truly massive 1958 Pontiac Star Chief, a 1975 VW Samba Bus with a split fold-out front windshield, a 1966 Rambler American convertible, a 1951 Mercury, a highly original 1951 Frazer Manhattan (one of 152 built), and Dave Larson’s pristine 1959 Chrysler 300E in bright red. I have included photos of Dave’s car in previous newsletters, but it is worth showing it again in technicolor (see below).

The 2026 Wheels of Wellesley show will be held on Sunday May 17th. See the NEMO event listings for details. The show opens at 9 a.m. but I suggest arriving at the Cross Street staging area no later than 8:30 a.m. Earlier is always better since Central Street can fill up. In previous years NEMO members have met in the Central Street parking lot and were able to park together.

BMCNE’s 2026 British Motorcars in Bristol car show will be held on Saturday, June 13th. Mini will be their “Special Marque” and the car voted best Mini / MINI will receive an award with the Mini logo. The plan is to park the Special Marque up front and have two banners with the Mini logo on them. In addition, the show T-shirt will feature a Mini.

Please spread the word to other Mini owners. This is the first time Mini is being featured at British Motorcars in Bristol and we should strive for a large turnout. See more at https://britishmotorcarsinbristol.com/.

I have been the NEMO Contributing Editor for 12 years and am running out of topics to write about. In the March newsletter I finally wrote an article about what I did on my summer vacation. It received a lot of positive feedback, so more may be forthcoming.

There are many events I don't attend due to the driving distance, including British by the Sea and the British Invasion. We need volunteers to cover these major shows. Weather permitting, I hope to attend British Motorcars in Bristol (see above). The last few years I have skipped Larz Anderson's British Car Day in favor of their free Cars & Coffee events. We need someone to cover British Car Day as well.

We haven't had any repair articles in some time. Surely some of you have winter projects to share with us. It is always fun to read personal stories about why you bought a particular car, what brought you to the classic car hobby, customizations you made to your car, scenic drives, etc. We also need coverage of the modern MINI scene.

Putting together a yearly event calendar is a big effort, especially when organizations are late to update their websites. There are plenty of shows, cruise nights, and Cars & Coffee events beyond my local driving range. Please let me know of any that you think other members would like to attend. You can email event listings to dschwartz1957@gmail.com.

In late August 2025 my wife Betty and I were in Italy for two weeks to attend a destination wedding on the Amalfi Coast.

Betty wasn’t thrilled about the idea of renting a car and would have preferred to take trains, buses, limos, and taxis. However, a recent edition of Rick Steve’s Italy book mentioned that train and bus strikes were common. This brought back memories of my Italy trip in 1975 when a strike stranded me in Sperlonga, halfway between Rome and Pompeii. Farmers spent the entire day sitting on the tracks to protest the low prices they received for tomatoes, and they prevented trains from travelling in either direction. The farmers didn’t leave until late in the afternoon when it started to rain. Our train returned to Rome and I missed my opportunity to visit Pompeii. Betty and I had a tour of Pompeii reserved and I was not willing to risk missing out again fifty years later.

A friend had rented a car in Italy in 2018 and told us that Italian drivers were no worse than Boston drivers. He was a native of eastern Massachusetts, so I figured no problem.

We reserved a car from Europcar for pick up at the airport in Rome. Italian rental car listings include the luggage capacity. We wanted a small four-door that used regular gas and had room for two suitcases that could be hidden under a hatchback cover. Our rental confirmation was for an Opel Corsa and included the usual “or similar” disclaimer.

We were pleasantly surprised to be provided with a 2024 MG3 Hybrid. I have owned Toyota hybrids since 2006 and was familiar with pushing a button to boot the car and using unconventional gear selectors. This was good since the MG3 did not have an owner’s manual.

Following BMW's break-up of the Rover Group, Nanjing Auto Corporation (NAC) in China bought MG-Rover in 2005. Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation (SAIC Motor) gained control of MG when it acquired NAC in 2007. MGs are designed by SAIC, and were assembled at the Longbridge plant in the UK from 2007 to 2016. Manufacturing is now done primarily at SAIC's plants in China. Almost 90% of MG sales come from markets outside of China.

The MG3 Hybrid has far more technology than any other car I have driven. On the plus side, a close-up view of the entire car exterior could be displayed on the 10-inch touch screen in the middle of the dashboard, complete with distance to impact lines and beeping when you get too close. The exterior view came on automatically when the car was in reverse and could be enabled manually. This was handy for parking, driving down narrow alleys, or making multi-point turns on 180-degree switchbacks.

However, some of the safety features were incompatible with the Italian driving style. A camera reads speed limit signs and the car beeps constantly when you exceed the limit. We had a lot of tailgaters on local roads until I figured out how to disable this feature. The lane departure assist was actually scary when driving on the highway. There was a lot of construction and constant lane shifts. Unfortunately, the old white lane markings were not erased, and a second set of yellow lanes was added. This led to a lot of warning beeps and gentle tugs on the steering wheel which pulled the car toward the wrong lane markers. Blind spot avoidance and forward collision avoidance were a mixed bag. There was so much tailgating and weaving on the highways that the car was constantly beeping.

I downloaded a PDF version of the MG3 owner’s manual and read the sections on disabling or modifying the safety technology settings. Unfortunately, every time you booted the car the settings reverted to their default values. We got very good at quickly traversing the multi-level touch screen menus to change the settings. The MG3 really needed a single top-level button for driving in Italy.

The wedding venue was in Cetara on the Amalfi Coast in southwestern Italy. The Amalfi Coast Road, also known as the Amalfitana, is a legendary drive that is on the bucket list of many driving enthusiasts. There is hardly a straight stretch of road, with many blind curves, and steep cliffs dropping off to the ocean. The road is barely wide enough for two small cars, let alone the large inter-city buses that take up both lanes. Plus, there are cars parked at scenic views, houses, and businesses along the road. Betty had read about the Amalfitana in our guide book which recommended against driving it yourself. I wasn’t too concerned since we only had to cover about 2.5 miles from the highway (autostrada) exit to our B&B.

Our B&B was about one mile from the wedding hotel as the crow flies, and we were initially relieved to arrive at the side street leading up to it. Unfortunately, the street was a steep mountain road and only one lane wide. At least we didn’t encounter anyone travelling in the opposite direction. There were many switchbacks, some of which required 3 or even 5-point turns. I grew to love the dash screen 360-degree car view.

Our host met us at the bottom of the B&B driveway and coached us on making a 5-point turn so we could reverse direction to enter the gate. The driveway was also quite steep with switchbacks. We were relieved to arrive safely and Betty didn’t want to drive the Amalfitana or the B&B road again.

Our host was very kind and offered to drive us where we wanted to go. He had a very flexible schedule and gave us numerous rides to the Cetara town center and to the wedding venue.

I did convince Betty that we could drive ourselves to the beach in Erchie which was only 2.6 miles from our B&B. We had traveled most of this route several times as passengers and it wasn’t too bad. We saw a classic Innocenti Mini along the side of the road that was apparently having engine trouble. This was the only classic Mini we saw during our two-week trip, though we saw lots of modern MINIs.

We also saw an MGA 1600 decorated as a wedding car in “downtown” Cetara, though not for the wedding we attended.

There were few if any classic Fiat 500s on the road but we parked next to one that was stored in a garage. There were lots of modern Fiat 500s on the roads. There were a fair number of other MG3s about as well as other modern MG models.

The day after the wedding it was back to the Amalfitana to pick up our daughter Laura who was in the wedding party. Then we were off to the autostrada to head north towards Tuscany.

Prior to the wedding we had a really great tour of Pompeii, so to break up the drive we stopped in Sperlonga for old times’ sake. Having told the tomato strike story for 50 years I wanted to visit on my terms. Sperlonga has a really nice beach and is a popular spot for family vacations.

A high point for Betty was learning that lactose-free Italian Buffalo Mozzarella is available on pizza. She hadn’t eaten pizza with mozzarella in 35 years and was told by our waiter (who had worked in Chicago) that many Italians are lactose-intolerant.

We visited several historic small towns in Tuscany. Our guidebook warned that there are many restricted traffic zones, known as zona a traffico limitato (ZTL). Non-residents are prohibited from driving in a ZTL unless they have a special permit. Historic city centers have very narrow streets that are primarily used by pedestrians. ZTLs limit traffic and reduce pollution. Some ZTLs are enforced by camera surveillance and unauthorized vehicles can receive a hefty fine. They were not always well marked so it can be easy to stray into a ZTL.

Our B&B in Lucca was located in a ZTL. We provided our rental car information to the host and were given a permit for our two-night stay. Driving in the ZTL was nerve wracking. Most streets were one way and were filled with pedestrians. We crawled along, yielding right of way until a path briefly opened up. (This did not endear us to the local drivers.) The GPS on my cell phone worked pretty well and the MG3 had Android Auto so the map was displayed on the center screen. However, on several occasions the GPS claimed, “you have reached your destination,” when we were actually hundreds of meters away, often on a different street. We called our B&B for help and told the host the visible businesses. He found us quickly and accompanied us to the parking garage. The garage had multiple rooms with narrow sharp turns and tiny spaces. We again benefitted from the 360-degree dash screen view.

The B&B only had parking for the first night of our stay, so in the morning we had to drive through the ZTL again and find a public lot about 2 miles away. Lucca was one of our favorite towns in Tuscany. There is an elevated pedestrian walkway surrounding the entire city. The walkway is built on fortress walls dating to the 16th century. We walked the entire 2.5-mile perimeter and encountered a craft fair, a farmers’ market, and the starting point of a professional bike race.

After a lovely day of exploring we arrived back at the B&B and happened to tell the woman at the reception desk where we had parked that morning. She responded that we needed to move the car or it would be towed. Fortunately for us, there had been a cancellation at the B&B and a parking space in the garage was now available. It was getting dark, so we made haste hiking back to the public lot. We didn’t want to drive through the ZTL after dark. At least there were fewer pedestrians at dusk. According to the step count app on Betty’s phone we walked about 10 miles that day.

Aside from an occasional missed turn due to vague GPS directions, we didn’t have any other major driving misadventures in Tuscany. But we did have one mishap on the autostrada, a toll road with periodic toll booths. Some lanes used transponders similar to an E-ZPass, other lanes provided tickets, and some lanes accepted cash or credit cards. The rental car did not include a transponder. The toll lanes were not always well marked, and after a confusing series of ramps I ended up in a transponder lane. I stopped and pushed the call button which had no effect. Cars impatiently pulled up behind us so there was no choice but to proceed. My hope was to find a customer service agent at the exit toll booth. There happened to be a transponder service center adjacent to the exit booth. We explained to an English-speaking attendant what happened and were told to pay 1.85 euros in cash and we would be all set. That was quite a relief as the fines can be high.

Food at rest stops on the autostrada was quite good. There were a small number of American fast-food restaurants, but all rest stops had freshly prepared Italian food, either buffet or made to order. Many rest stops featured large grocery stores and gift shops overflowing with pasta, wine, chocolate, and candy.

The MG3 got very good gas mileage. We drove 930 miles and only filled up a few times. I never calculated our precise mileage but several websites state it is between 50 and 60 mpg depending on the driving mix. Most gas stations were self-serve. If full serve was available, it was much more expensive. Our Visa credit card did not work at several stations. When filling up prior to returning the car to the Rome airport we learned that some self-serve pumps do not accept US credit cards. Mystery solved.

Would I rent a car again in Italy? My short answer is yes. This is despite the highway drivers being far more aggressive than Boston area drivers and the insanity of driving on the Amalfi Coast. It required a few drives on the autostrada to learn lane strategy, passing strategy, and how to mostly avoid tailgaters. If tailgating were an Olympic sport, Italy would win gold, silver, and bronze. I would not rush to drive on the Amalfitana again, though I would attempt the mountain pass in The Italian Job (“Hang on a minute lads, I’ve got an idea…”) or Stelvio Pass with its endless 180-degree switchbacks.

I would definitely not want to own an MG3 Hybrid, or any other car with so much gratuitous technology and overzealous safety features. I am a Luddite at heart and prefer analog controls. Though the 360-degree camera view around an entire car is a great feature. Blind spot warning and forward collision warning are also good features, as long as they don’t take control.

Trip epilogue: After we arrived home, Betty called many different grocery stores and specialty cheese shops and found that Market Basket carries-lactose free mozzarella. We now regularly make delicious pizza at home.

PUTNAM, Conn. — Seventeen of the 19 NEMO members who had RSVPed they were coming showed up for the club’s annual Holiday Party. This year it was held at The Crossings, the renovated and repurposed former train station in Putnam. We were given a separate area away from the other diners so we could conduct our business more easily, which mainly was ordering off the excellent Crossings menu, sharing a brief rundown of the club’s financials, and enjoying our famous Yankee Swap.

Attending the Party were the usual suspects (save for a few who had scheduling conflicts or were feeling under the weather) and some new faces. To wit: Greg Mazza, Ken Lemoine, John Gallagher, Wendy and Tom Birchmire, Thom Pickett, Lorine and Derick Karabec, Bob and Kathy Brownell, David and Jean Icaza, Dave and Fran Brown, Phil Darrell, and Faith Lamprey and me. The wait staff was quick, friendly, got everyone’s orders right, and was very accommodating with separate checks when it came time to pay.

Our Keeper of the Monies, Dave Black, was unable to come to the Party, but he left a report for Faith to share with the attendees. The report detailed income and expenses for the club and the Hrach Fund, which is dedicated to developing youth interest in Minis and other classic cars by supporting kids’ events and scholarships. Rest assured both our treasury and the Hrach Fund are solvent and healthy.

We planned the get-together to begin at 11:30 a.m. so that we could have the Yankee Swap earlier than usual, hopefully before the restaurant filled up with the Saturday lunchtime crowd. This was to keep any disturbance from our usual high-volume high jinks to a minimum. I guess it worked. Nobody complained, from what I could gather, and our server kept smiling.

John Gallagher drew the first Yankee Swap ticket and returned to his seat with a 5-qt. jug of 20W50 motor oil branded “Classic Mini.” Of course, getting the first ticket meant John could return to the Swap after the last ticket was pulled and steal anyone else’s gift – a privilege he exercised, grabbing a very nice MINI model from Wendy Birchmire (which Wendy, incidentally, had stolen earlier from Ken Lemoine).

Another hot item was a bottle of Slane Irish Whiskey, unwrapped by Greg Mazza, stolen by Bob Brownell, and then re-stolen by yours truly where it remained. Greg and Bob both returned to the unwrapped presents in turn, with Greg winding up with a set of multi-function work lights perfect for the car, just in case, and Bob with a hooded scarf hand-made by Fran Brown.

Managing to hold onto what they unwrapped were the Karabecs (Lorine with a Mini-print tote bag, and Derick with a Mini print), the Browns (Fran with a Mini-print tablecloth and Dave with a Mini book, what appeared to be a Union Jack teapot cozy or a very large knit cap, and a package of clotted cream fudge), and Jean Icaza with a throw featuring MINIs with Mt. Fuji in the background. This writer thought at first it was Mt. Washington and a depiction of a “MINIs on Top” event, but then noticed the MINIs were all right-hand-drive.

Rounding out the list were Faith with a lovely teapot, a Union Jack spoon rest and a mouse pad, Thom with the book Mini: Thirty Years On, and Phil with a pair of thermal work gloves just right for the winter season to come. All in all, it was a good haul for everyone.

To see more photos of the Holiday Party, visit the Gallery.