Michael Green was born in Oakland, CA., in May of 1958, but it could have been in England. Less than a month before he as born, his parents, Richard & Doreen Green were "home" in England. When they arrived at Hethrow-London Airport for their flight back to California the airline refused Doreen to board "in her condition." After a three hour wait, a nurse was put aboard the flight and the pair winged their way back to their new home in the Oakland Hills. The family joke is, "his mother went to the hospital in a XK140 Jaguar and came home in a new Aston Martin Notchback."
The Beginning Con't...
At this time in 1958, Richard was then the "resident engineer" with Aston Martin, now based in San Leandro, CA. The Jaguar was their personal car, which A-M asked they sell, hence the Aston Martin company car. Earlier in the 1950's both Richard & Doreen were employed by Aston Martin Racing. Richard in the race shop (he also drove the transporter across the UK and Europe), while Doreen was the secretary to Team Manager John Wyer. . During this same period of time, Doreen learned to drive a car, but not just any car, but a DB3S race car with none other than Peter Collins (World Sportscar & Grand Prix driver) in the other seat!
Richard also did a stint with MG Racing (1955) and when he emigrated to the USA (Los Angeles, CA) he would become the shop foreman for Tony Parivano Racing. Needless to say, Michael grew up around race cars and numoerus famous drivers.
In 1960 Richard went to work for the Rover Motor Company of North America Limited in their South San Francisco office. As Product Development Engieer and later Service Manager for the Western USA, Richard stayed there for 30 years before retiring from Jaguar Cars Inc (he stayed through all the name changes: Leyland Motor Sales, British Leyland, Jaguar-Rover-Triumph Inc. and finally Jaguar Cars Inc.).
We moved to Dublin (CA) from Hayward in 1965, next to our house was a cattle ranch, owned by the Neilsen Family. My mother use to say, "we moved to the country". It was a nice town, the population being only 500 when we moved in. I use to spend a lot of time playing (and working) on the ranch next to us. One day Tommy Neilsen and his friend were riding a mini bike up and down the road from the main house to the ranch, Robrt Neilsen and I thought we'd better go take a look. After wathcing for sometime we finally asked for a turn. I don't remember much about Robert's first ride, but I do mine. I jumped on, engine running, and with a handfull of throttle I was off, right off into a barbed wire fence at the end of the road!
Sometime in 1966 I overheard Dad telling telling my mother that he'd "bought a motorcycle" in England and that "the company had shipped it to San Francisco". One day Dad came home in a Land Rover 109" hardtop, in the back was a wooden crate. My buddy John Anderson and I were pestering dad to get the bike out of the crate. In due time we unloaded the Rover then opened the crate... and to our horror, John and I saw a rusty old motorcycle, one we knew we wouldn't be riding this afternoon... or for the next nine years! It took my Dad that long to restore it... a 1929 Sunbeam Model-90 499cc road racer. Take a look at the Sunbeam page (link is on the index page).
