MID MAINE
SPORTS CAR CLUB

Silvio Calabi

Born in France to Swiss and Italian parents and raised outside Boston, Silvio graduated from Middlebury College in 1972. A degree in Marine Geology notwithstanding, he joined the Orvis Company, in southern Vermont, to run their machine shop, but then did an about-face and went to work for the local newspaper. He was one of the founders of Fly Rod & Reel Magazine; when that was sold to the owners of Down East, in Rockport, he relocated to Camden in 1983.

Since then, as a publisher, editor and author of fieldsports media, he has been able to travel widely. As well, since 1985 he has driven more than 1,700 cars as an automotive correspondent for magazines, newspapers and websites; he now writes the “Opinionated at any speed” auto column in the Penobscot Bay Pilot. In the winter he teaches disabled people to ski in Colorado. In the summer, when the weather is especially nice, Silvio and his wife Sue sometimes leave their boat on its mooring and take out their Aston Martin Vantage instead. 

Bob McKay

Bob grew up on Staten Island, where his father was a sea captain with the US Lines Steam Ship Company and where Bob developed a love for painting maritime subjects. He graduated from the New York School of Visual Arts in 1961. After six years in the US Marine Corps, serving mostly in the Far East, Bob embarked on a career as an art director for advertising agencies and publishing companies in and around New York City.

In 1998, he and his wife Jean retired to Boothbay Harbor. Besides painting, Bob's hobbies include restoring sports cars, racing in VSCCA events and serving on the boards of several Maine groups. When Bob and Jean moved to Maine, they gave up their plane but brought their sailboat. They now spend most of their summers cruising the Maine coast. Their garage houses a 1951 MG TD, a 1978 Ferrari 308S (which Bob bought new) and a 1957 Lotus Eleven Le Mans racer with Mille Miglia dust still on it, plus the family Honda Pilot. 

John Freeman

Born in Providence, John grew up in Meadville, in northwestern Pennsylvania. He returned to Rhode Island to earn a degree in Classics at Brown University as a member of the Class of 1970. For the next 37 years, John worked at the College of William and Mary as bookstore director and retail operations manager and then joined the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, both in Williamsburg, Virginia. He finished out his career with four years as Town Administrator of Warrenton, North Carolina.

In 2011, John and his wife retired to New England, eventually to Bristol, Maine, where he and Mary—lovers of old houses who have now restored two of them—settled into a Colonial Era center-chimney Cape Cod.

Complementing their series of vintage homes, since 1973 John and Mary have had one or another vintage Jaguar also, including a 150FHC, a 120FHC, an XJS and, currently, a white MK2 Saloon. John wishes he still owned the 1938 Talbot-Lago Cabriolet he’d had for more than 30 years. John is a 12-year veteran of MMSCC. 

Ed Schultz

Born and raised in New York City, Ed Schultz graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1967. He went to work for New York Telephone but, rather than being drafted, pre-emptively enlisted in the Navy as an Avionics Electronic Technician. He first posting was to a unit in Japan that flew P-3 reconnaissance aircraft out of Da Nang, Vietnam. His next assignment was to another P-3 squadron, this one based at Moffett Field in California, where he flew Operation Market Time flights off the coast of Vietnam.

After the Navy, Ed joined Lockheed, a career that took him to Iceland, Portugal, Nova Scotia and again to Japan. When he retired after 32 years, he was a Senior Design Engineer; by then he’d also put in 24 years in the Navy Reserve. He and Sandi—now married almost 50 years—presently own a chrome-bumper British Racing Green 1974 MGB Roadster. It’s their third MGB; the first two were both ‘67s with wire wheels, one the rare overdrive that Ed wishes he still owned.

Ed Avis

Ed Avis grew up in rural West Virginia and it wasn’t until college that he saw his first British sports car, a Sunbeam Alpine. After college, Ed joined the Navy, which became a 30-year career—seven years on active duty and 23 in the Reserve. As a Reserve officer, Ed had a parallel career with the Navy as an analyst and then a civil servant. He met and married Maine native Cheryl during his first tour at Naval Air Station Brunswick, where he served on P-3 patrol aircraft.

After seven years in Newport, Rhode Island, they returned to Maine and, in 1984, moved into their home in Litchfield, a 220-year-old farmhouse with which they’ve had a love-hate relationship (mostly love) for 40 years.

Their first sports car was a second-hand 1974 MGB that Ed bought “for Cheryl’s birthday” when he was 40. They went on to own two MG-TDs and a Jaguar XJ-S V-12 convertible before settling on their current stable: a 1953 XK-120 DHC, a 1965 E-Type OTS and a Mk 2 Saloon. 

George Silvestri

George Silvestri grew up along Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, sailing small boats and water skiing. After graduating college, he taught in a school for physically and cognitively challenged students while studying for a Master’s in Special Education. Personal computers were beginning to enter the classroom, and he developed ways to use them to help his students. This led to a post as Director of Technology at a school outside Boston, from which he retired in 2017.

George’s interest in cars dates back to a high-school friend's MG TD. Thereafter, beginning with an MG Midget, sports cars—fun to drive and fun to work on—came and went; today, a Morgan and an Elan still tick those boxes. After a Morgan Owners Gathering (hosted by Frank Wnek) in Maine, in 2012 , George and his wife Katy fell in love with the Midcoast, eventually settling in Harpswell. George likes to say, paraphrasing Water Rat to the Mole: There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats and sports cars.

Sam Surprise

Sam was born and raised in small-town Allegan, Michigan, and graduated from Michigan State University in 1981. His career in media began in New York City in the roaring ‘80s, the heyday of cable TV. He moved to Maine in 1987 for a marketing and advertising job and then, two years later, went out on his own as Surprise Advertising, based in Portland.

Over the years, the firm grew to a staff of eight people and then back to one: Sam. He considers himself semi-retired, with just enough work to keep him doing what he loves, creating ads and solving problems for his clients. Divorced, Sam has two daughters and is the proud grandfather of a toddler named Ripley. For 27 years he’s owned a 1987 Alfa Veloce Spyder and been a member of the Alfa Club of New England. Next up, possibly a 1969 – ‘71 Mercedes 250 CE or 280 SE coupé. One of Sam’s passions is spreading the word that “MMSCC is the best damn sports car club in town.” 

Sarah Rheault

Sarah, a charter member of MMSCC, was born in England. When she was just 3, her father’s work as an architect took the family to Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. At the age of 14, Sarah was shipped home to England to be educated. After graduation, while en route to the Solomon Islands, her father’s last career stop, Sarah took a break in Australia to work at a ski resort. When she finally reached the Solomons, she taught cooking in a technical school and met Andy Rheault, from Boston, whose company shipped spiny lobsters around the world.

Sarah and Andy traveled to Maine, where they married, but then went back to the Solomons. Andy sold the shipping company and they returned to Maine in 1974, where they settled in Rockport and bought a boatyard. Andy had found a derelict Type 40 Bugatti in Vietnam, and restored it; later, the family added a Type 37 Bugatti, a Morris Minor, a 1935 Riley Imp and finally a Type 13 Bugatti. Son Chrisso is also a member of MMSCC.

Ian Marshall

Born in Glasgow in 1956, Ian went straight into the Royal Air Force after graduating high school. There he served as an electronics operator, then navigator and finally captain on Nimrod anti-submarine aircraft. This took him to some hot zones, including the Falklands war, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ian met Maine native Claire at Brunswick Naval Air Station; they married in 1996 and she returned to Scotland with him for 10 years. Finally, after 31 years of service and 11,000-plus hours of flying, Ian retired from the RAF in 2005. He and Claire returned to Maine and settled in Harpswell.

n the UK, Ian competed in off-road driving events with old Land Rovers; presently he has a 1969 ex-RAF Lightweight air-transportable version. In 2020 he added a BMW Z3 and then, in 2023, a 1975 Triumph TR—which, he says, has the British sports car heritage that the Z3 lacks, but also the traditional oil drips. In addition to driving, Ian’s hobbies include sailing and shooting target pistols and sporting clays.