Michael Jeff, a 25-year employee at Kane Motorcar Company, is surrounded by a Triumph TR6, a Sunbeam Tiger, center, and 1952 MG TD, while he works on a 1968 Jaguar XKE.

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The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

NORTH KINGSTOWN There is something very personal about Kane Motorcar Company. And that’s not surprising given that it reflects a partnership that goes back almost 40 years.

Indeed, Sandy Kane and David Owens, who are both in their sixties, have known each since they played as children on Plum Beach in North Kingstown during the summer in the 1950s.

Owens grew up in Cranston and Kane would come up from Philadelphia for the summer. After Owens came out of the military in 1969, he joined Kane, who had set up a repair shop in Saunderstown.

“Sandy had a little repair shop, mostly worked on hot rods,” said Owens, noting, “There were a lot of young Navy guys (into hot rods) from the Naval Air Station in Quonset.”

He said they moved into their current location at 1028 Boston Neck Rd./Route 1A in 1969 and immediately went to work. “The day we opened for business there were cars waiting in line to work on,” he said, adding that the shop soon started to specialize in foreign cars.

“Triumphs, MGs,” he said. “There were not many people working on British cars in those days.”

The two have never looked back, living their lives in each other’s back pockets, working together, getting married — Kane to Donna, Owens to Linda — and raising three children apiece.

The auto side of the business, which Owens runs, is now split between restoring antique cars and general service work. Kane focuses on an adjacent gun shop and a charter boat business that runs fishing trips out of Wickford in the summer and fall.

The entrance to the shop is whimsical, with a glass-fronted counter full of curios and prints around the wall. Owens’ office is around the corner in the workshop where a range of vehicles are serviced.

Toward the rear of the shop are two antique British sports cars, a powder blue 1962 Austin Healey 3000 Mk II and a replica of an MGA prototype — the EX 182 that was built to race at Le Mans in 1955.

MG built four EX 182s for the race. One placed 12th, another 17th while a third crashed, badly injuring the driver. It was the same race that saw the worst accident in racing history when a car hurtled into the crowd, killing about 75 people and injuring an equal number. The fourth car served as a backup.

Owens and Michael Jeff, 47, who runs the restoration shop, built the British racing green replica some 20 years ago on the frame of a production 1959 MGA.

“It was totally rusted out and crashed up,” Jeff said of the MGA. Owens worked on the engine, Jeff on “pretty much everything else — the bodywork, cosmetic details, interior and wiring.”

The project took years. “Don’t ask,” said Jeff. “Two hours a night for many years.”

The car is striking, with its open cockpit protected by a crude rollover bar, two small Brooklands windshields and extra large single lights on the front of the grille. Round decals read 66 in honor of the EX 182s that raced under numbers in the ’60s.

Owens said the Austin-Healey was in for general servicing. “It’s not run in 20 years,” he said, explaining that the owner had kept it garaged all that time. Indeed, the interior is in very good condition.

“He wants us to get it running again and maybe he’ll want to have it restored,” he added.

“A lot of the cars we work on are essentially nostalgia projects,” he said, referring to the Austin Healey. Some are cars that owners have had for a long time and are finally having them worked on, he said. Others find a car they used to have, buy it and have it restored.

Beyond the workshop is a small room that Owens said is kept clean for changing engines. And across the way is the restoration shop.

Inside, a number of cars were being restored, including a white 1964 Sunbeam Tiger — basically a Sunbeam Alpine that Carroll Shelby successfully armed with a Ford V8 — a green 1952 MGTD, a 1968 4.2 E-Type Jaguar (with only 37,000 miles on the clock) and a black 1974 TR6.

“(The TR6) looked great, but there were a lot of loose ends that needed to be tied up,” said Jeff of the wiring, seats and other details.

A 1966 Kreidler Florett motorbike from Germany sits in front of the E-Type’s great shell of a hood, which is propped up against the wall. Owens and Jeff were not sure how it got there. “We acquired it some time ago, part of a trade,” said Owens.

On the wall are old signs and posters, photos from former projects, pictures of NASCAR star Jeff Gordon and three Jaguar grilles — an XK 120, an XK 150 and a Mark X (10).

Next door is a stripped-down 1965 Austin Cooper, better known as a Mini, with a license plate that reads “VRROOM” and its roof sawn off. The shop is in the process of turning it into a convertible.

Owens said the shop employs four full-time technicians in addition to Kane and himself, plus a couple of part-timers.

Outside are cars that are being stored or waiting to be worked on. A number are for sale, but only by their owners, as the shop is not involved in sales. Indeed, a red 1959 MGA that Owens and Jeff restored 20 years ago along with the green EX 182 that is in for minor servicing is for sale by the owner at about $19,900.

Stepping into Kane’s gun shop is like stepping into a sporting club from an earlier time, with the atmosphere dominated by the slow ticking of an antique wall clock.

The walls are lined with sporting rifles and pistols as well as old framed advertisements, prints of Native Americans, antique firearms and stuffed animal heads.

Three dark blue Stetsons sit on one side table, two from the Civil War and one from the 1st Cavalry during frontier days. A number of small ceremonial antique cannons take up some of the floor space.

Above the enormous head of a Cape Buffalo shot in Zimbabwe by a friend sits a rare Chinese military rifle from the era of the Boxer rebellion at the turn of the last century. Kane explained that it took two soldiers to hold it, one resting it on his shoulder, while an officer fired it.

“It was a cumbersome process,” he said.

Kane, who enjoys trap shooting and bird hunting and is an avid gun collector, said about 70 percent of his business is in sporting guns with the rest collectibles. He also runs a 41-foot charter boat — the Razin Kane — out of Wickford in summer and fall, taking groups out fishing mainly for bluefish and striped bass.

He noted the charter fishing business has changed over the years.

“It’s really over-fished,” he said. He said he remembers once “raising 15 white marlin in a day.”

“I haven’t seen a white marlin probably in eight or 10 years,” he said. Asked about a partnership that has lasted a lifetime and seen not only a number of businesses flourish but two families of three children each grow up, Kane said their personalities complement each other.

“Dave is studious and patient,” he said, implying he is not.

They are different. Owens, who appears comfortable in his skin with a ready smile accompanied by a low chuckle, graduated from Dartmouth College. Kane is a rangy man with an ever-present pipe who seems more restless; he dropped out of Villanova University, having transferred from another college.

“I hated it,” he said, recalling being saved from failing a psychology final when the professor lost his exam paper.

“I hadn’t studied and took 20 minutes to guess the lengthy questions,” he said, laughing at the hopelessness of the situation. But the shamed professor offered him a C+ and he said, “I’ll take it,” and subsequently dropped out.

“It was awful,” he said.

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