Arthur Petri, a longtime member of the Southwest Texas Triumph Association (STTA) passed away on March 1, 2025 after a an over 3 year battle with esophageal cancer. Arthur was a certified mechanic and there was nothing he could not fix on our British cars or any other cars for that matter. Arthur was well respected for his mechanical skills and fixed many of the British cars in the San Antonio area. Many times he would go to someone’s home and repair their car and make it run well. During our local, regional and national Triumph meetings, you could often find Arthur under the hood of someone’s car helping repair or replace a car part. Arthur immensely loved to fix the problems with our cars.

Arthur developed a love of all things mechanical early in his life. As he grew up, he worked at his father’s gasoline station/garage. In those days his father would buy cars at auction and he and his dad would fix them up and resale the cars. Arthur became very adept at diagnosing problems and finding solutions to make the cars look good and run well. Arthur learned more about how cars work in high school and his passion for autos led him to work on cars with his friends. When he went to Japan in the Airforce, Arthur worked at nights and on weekends in a friend’s shop and that is where he honed his autocross skills. Arthur always looked forward to the autocross portion of our Triumph meetings and he was routinely one of the fastest at the tracks. Arthur took great pride in winning the autocross. Arthur was also a certified mechanic and he worked at Seguin Chevrolet for a period of time. Maintaining his mechanic’s certification was extremely important to Arthur and he took great pride in passing the recertification examinations which covered a broad spectrum of auto mechanics. Watching Arthur work on cars was fascinating as he could adeptly diagnose any issue with the car and quickly remedy the problem. Arthur could do anything on cars. He rebuilt many motors from scratch and watching those motors fire up the first time gave him enormous satisfaction. Many of our British cars have dual carburetors on them and Arthur considered himself somewhat of a “carburetor whisperer”. One of the things he most enjoyed was tuning a car such that you could just turn the key slightly and the car would start immediately without even touching the gas pedal. Arthur would get a huge smile on his face when that motor started purring! Arthur was also an incredible supporter of auto mechanic education. He frequently bought multiple copies of the mechanic’s book that he used in high school and would give them to anyone interested in the profession. Arthur was the consummate educator and taught us to just try and fix things. He often said that there was nothing we could do that he could not fix so we should go ahead and try to fix things. Building mechanical confidence in others was a goal for Arthur as he wanted us to all be able to get the car running if we broke down on the side of the road which often happens with old British cars. Clearly one of Arthur’s greatest attributes was his love of cars. There is no doubt that Arthur is in Heaven right now looking over our shoulders and encouraging us to work on our cars.

Arthur was also a huge rock and roll music fan. He had over 10,000 songs on his phone and he knew the lyrics for most all of the songs. As soon as the first few notes of a song would come on, Arthur immediately started singing the first words. When working on a car, he often stopped and played his “air guitar” or “air drums”. He loved to do this no matter what he was working on. Over the last number of years, Arthur developed a huge interest in the local model railroad hobby and associations. Arthur developed his love of trains growing up in Pennsylvania and he knew all about the railroad systems across the country. He became an important member of the San Antonio Model Railroad Association (SAMRA) and he built model railroad cars and painted them to be exact replicas. His electrical knowledge allowed Arthur to put sound and lights in the cars and he did that for many of the members of SAMRA. Arthur bought and sold many railroad cars on ebay and he loved his time working and playing with the model trains. A few months prior to his passing, in recognition of the respect the STTA members had for Arthur, the club members voted unanimously to make Arthur Petri an Honorary Member of our STTA organization. This was a well-deserved and earned honor and we will all greatly miss Arthur.