A Jag-Lover's Tale

I. My Introduction to Coventry

One day during the Spring of 1993, I looked out of my office window at NASA Ames Research Center and nearly stopped breathing. Outside, on the street in front of the building was quite possibly the most wonderful car I had ever seen. Its condition was far less than perfect, but it represented to me everything which an automobile should be.

I must admit that I am genetically suseptible to British Cars. My father drove an Austin and hung around with guys who wore tweed hats and string-back gloves, and spoke in a code of letters and numbers (XK-150, 100/6, TR-4A, SU, IRS). I spent many a summer Saturday at the Continental Divide Raceway in Colorado where I grew up, watching the sports car races. In the early '70s, sports car racing meant British Cars. Lotus, Jaguar, Austin-Healey, Cooper-Climax, MG, Triumph, the names recall images of tiny cars squealing rubber around a tight winding track at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. I'm sure there were Porsches and maybe an Alfa or two, but they didn't seem to stick in my memory.

As luck would have it, that exquisite car, a 1959 Jaguar 2.4L Saloon, was the new love of my old friend and fellow Jag-Lover, Ryan Border. Ryan indicated there were a few problems with the car and that he would be replacing a few parts to make the car roadworthy. I immediately volunteered to help with anything and everything.

At first I thought I could get by with only a weekend fix of an hour or two, tearing apart brake calipers and rebuilding clutch cylinders. But then an hour or two per week stretched into an hour or two both Saturday and Sunday, and soon I was making a real nuisance of my self around the Border household.

It was about this time when flipping through the pages of my local "Auto Trader" magazine, I came across a photo add for a "60 Jaguar 3.4L". Sweat broke out on my forehead, and I immediately ran to check my bank balance. No go. I couldn't afford it. I called anyway.

I went to see what turned out to be another '59 Mk 1, but powered by the 3.4 litre incarnation of the XK engine. The body was straight with little or no obvious rust, the engine idled smoothly, if a bit fast, and the original interior was in surprisingly good condition considering its age. Ryan, who had come along for the fun of it, looked jealous. I drooled.

Needless to say I was hooked.

The test drive was something else entirely. Shifting the automatic into "Drive," the car leaped across the garage and I was only able to keep from running into a wall by the vigorous application of both feet to the brake pedal. Once my breathing returned to normal, I eased off on the brake and spun the steering wheel toward the door. After what seemed like a complete revolution with no appreciable effect, the steering box caught and we began what turned out to be a very short and lively (hazardous?) test drive.

Out on the street the car had a pronounced wobble and the brakes still required herculean effort (both feet on the pedal and a third out the door -- lesson: take a strong, well shod friend when test driving old cars) to bring the car to a halt. Application of steering force had to be planned long in advance. Once back in the garage, the Jag produced a nice little pool of oil, no doubt marking its territory. Not only had it marked the garage, but it had encircled the block with a trail of various fluids which could be easily followed at highway speeds.

Once the car was on the lift, it was easy to see the source of the wobble. The front suspension sub-frame was attached by part of one front-mount and was otherwise hanging from the sway bar, the other three mounts had fully disintegrated. The pitman arm at the steering box was flopping around loose, accounting for the sloppy steering. The whole underside of the car was coated in a thin film of motor oil which dripped at odd intervals, and seemed to come from the back of the engine block.

"I can fix that," kept ringing through my skull as a litany of little mechanical problems were unveiled. Meanwhile, cash registers in Steubenville, OH, Johnston, RI, and San Luis Obispo, CA began to ring, and the counter guy at the auto parts store around the corner from my house picked up an unexplainable nervous tick.

Next, "Garage Sculpture".

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