Behind the Wheel: The gift of friendship drives this Austin-Healey

METRO DETROIT — It didn’t take long for David White and Dan Heming to become friends for life.

From the moment they met in 1968 as student naval aviators in the U.S. Navy, they formed an immediate bond when stationed in Pensacola, Florida, and Meridian, Mississippi.

“He was in another squadron. We were flying the same airplane, a T-34. It’s a primary trainer,” White said. “He was going through his battles to get the grades to move forward, and so was I. It’s a pretty rigorous environment.”

White, a Michigan State University graduate, and Heming, a University of Michigan graduate, lost touch for a while after leaving the service, but soon reconnected.

“I was out at the Pontiac Airport after we both left the service, and there he was,” White, of Bloomfield Township, said. “This was about 1972, and the bond was re-created instantly.”

Sadly, Heming died a few years ago at age 76.

“We went through some really tight situations together. He saved me from falling off the side of a mountain one time. We’ve had some really on-the-edge experiences, and it built a bond,” White said. “It’s the purest measure of friendship. When I think of him — a very generous man.”

Over the years, both men married and started families, but they continued their friendship, often cruising in Heming’s 1956 Austin-Healey. The British sports car maker was established in 1952 through a joint venture between the Austin division of the British Motor Corp. and the Donald Healey Motor Co. Many of Heming and White’s leisure drives in the Austin-Healey were in Milford.

“We’d just look around, have a coffee, get waves from people,” White said. “Sometimes we’d go out to the state parks. We were bikers and hikers at the time. Two good friends that would just enjoy the day.”

White also remembers traveling to Wisconsin when the car was going through an engine modification.

“We went on the ferry and across the lake. I remember the first test drive we took. The car hadn’t been completed. The guy that was working on it said, ‘Hey, take it for a drive,’” White said. “We’re hauling down the road somewhere in Wisconsin. He was pushing it to the limit and I was going, ‘Whoa, whoa. You’re going a little too fast for me.’ We finally got back to the garage. As he was getting out of the car, he pulled up on the steering wheel and it came right off it. We both went, ‘Holy smokes.’”

Heming owned an Austin-Healey while in college but sold it when he entered the Navy. Years later, he bought the 1956 Austin-Healey, which “brought back memories of his college days and also some of the things that happened in the Navy,” White said.

Heming’s friendship also left an impact on White’s wife of 54 years, Ann White.

“There were a lot of late evenings on the patio in the back and a fair amount of Scotch,” Ann White said of the pair.

“And cigars,” White said.

White is now taking care of the Austin-Healey. When Heming died a few years ago, he willed the car to his Navy pal. It took White some time to get used to the idea of having the car. At first, he didn’t want to drive the convertible because “it was Dan’s car.”

“It sat in his garage for quite a while after he passed away,” Ann White said. “It took Dave a while to make it OK in his head.”

But he has since carried on Heming’s love for the automobile. A novice to the Austin-Healey, White learned everything he could about the car, “from servicing the vehicle to the right fluids you use.” When he first brought it home, Ann White drove very closely in front of White, who was following in the Austin-Healey.

“I hop in the car, start the car up and I’m driving from Milford to Birmingham,” White said. “And it’s getting dark.”

White then turned on a switch he thought were the headlights, but nothing happened.

“I can’t even turn the headlights on,” he said. “We finally got home. It took me another day to figure out the English have a way of pulling it out and then turning it to the right. I thought I had done that, but I apparently didn’t.”

The restored vehicle is a 100-6 two-seater roadster model. The classic car has a 6-cylinder engine paired with an upgraded 5-speed manual transmission. It is paired in what White calls a “mesmerizing custom green/blue exterior, gleaming chrome with the impeccable condition of luxurious black upholstery interior. A true gem in every sense.”

White often takes the car out for drives on Saturday and Sunday mornings. He’s met up with a local Austin-Healey group a few times. He also likes to drive the English car through Bloomfield Hills, sometimes with his wife by his side.

“There are some neat roads that go on forever. I drive it just for the pure pleasure when I can,” said White, who misses his friend. “I thank him every time I drive.”

During his lifetime, Heming became a commercial pilot for USAir. He also flew for Roger Penske. White worked in advertising, started his own marketing company and also is a published author of two books — “Tall Air” and “True Blue” — under the name D Stuart White.