Small side-trip en route Holtville for an I-forget-which event. We pulled over and off the freeway at the bottom of the long downhiil on the east side of the (Cuyamaca?) range of mountains that separates the Imperial Valley from the Southernmost California coast.

In the upper right of the photo is some Ocotillo. Most remarkable is yet another style of numbering on this car.

Syd Cole's red MGA is closest the camera. Syd Cole's barefoot son, Arthur, is center-frame. Arthur is a good guy, and a talented artist. He's the fellow who brightened the concrete retaining walls in the southeast corner of I-805/I-8, beginning the job without permission. Way I heard it, Caltrans liked the idea enough to put him on the payroll as designer of appropriate scenes for other, similarly drab constructions.

Farther in are the Sprites of Jim Serniuk and Don Moss, Sally Moss in the seat of the latter. The by-now familiar blue MGB convertible is obscuring the magnificent Butch Engelbrecht 289 Cobra. Even deeper, a wall of the old (new at the time) KCST Channel 39 studios on Engineer Road.That building was demolished within the past few months, since KNSD 7/39 moved to Downtown San Diego. Highway 163 (395) is to our right, the Balboa West off-ramp at our back.

The building at the left was at the moment a Big Apple store, I think. Subsequent tenants included Arnold's, as keystone of a friendly family-run furniture complex. I'm not sure what's in there now (Mercedes-Benz Dealer used cars ?), but for you computer-oriented folks, Datel on Mercury Street was against the wall opposite the one you see. Now that is an Oriental market. The more things change . . .

It seems to me this may have been the first outing of the MGB on Goodyear racing tires. Their wide-and-square profile resulted in some pylon-picking and a poor showing.

Probably mid-1968.

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