When Brad Baumgart was a teenager in Poplar Bluff, Mo., he spent many an hour on a creeper under a car at Baumgart Motor Co., his grandfather’s car dealership, watching mechanics work. 

 He also often chased parts on his bicycle for 35 cents an hour.

 “I carried a lot of parts back to the shop on my bike,” he said, “even big things, like tailpipes.”

 When Baumgart was 16, his dad’s father gave him a 1967 Chevrolet Impala. Baumgart, of Overland Park, said that during the week he and his friends would work on their cars to fix the things that were broken from drag racing the weekend before on narrow two-lane highways.

 In 1972, Baumgart needed a reliable car to take to the University of Missouri at Columbia, and he bought a 1954 Chevrolet for $650. It had been sitting under a tree for years and had 17,000 miles.  He buffed the paint back to brilliance and drove the car during his under-graduate years. Later, during law school in Columbia, he drove a right-hand-drive Jeep mail truck.

 Last year, Baumgart got the bug for a classic car. He has been partial to British sports cars since he test-drove a 1972 MGB GT, so he acquired a low-mileage 1974 Triumph TR6.

 The TR6 was manufactured in Coventry, England, from 1969 through 1976. It has a 2.5-liter, six-cylinder engine that produces 106 horsepower. Approximately 84,000 were imported to the States.

 Ever the perfectionist, Baumgart began restoring the car soon after he bought it. He enlisted the folks at Foreign Car Enterprise in Kansas City to overhaul the suspension and install roller rocker arms. He meticulously detailed the engine compartment, which was repainted without removing the engine.

 He then had the TR6’s body repainted in its original French Blue, and he had the bumpers and luggage  rack rechromed. He also added 16-inch Konig wheels, new tires and new headlights.

 Baumgart, who belongs to the Kansas City Triumphs club, displayed his TR6 at the Kansas City Art Institute’s Art of the Car Concours in June, but he uses it for daily transportation as often as possible.

 “I like the TR6 because it is fun to drive, looks sharp and sounds good, ” he said. It’s quite a step up from a ’54 Chevy or an old mail truck.