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Be very careful, you are in a very dangerous spot. This is exactly how I got hooked on Jags and I know the precise instant when it all started. It was in the mid-eighties, when I was a impoverished grad student studying numerical weather prediction at the Univ of Utah. Anne and I had already been seduced into the world of british-cars, with a Triumph TR-8 that we couldn't afford to restore or even license languishing in our garage. So close and yet so far. One evening, to break the stress, Anne and I went for a drive up above the Salt Lake valley. We motored quietly thru a very posh section of town, with wide streets and big old Tudor houses dwarfed by large shadowy trees. It was a warm, still summer evening under a beautiful desert sunset, the street lights just starting to come on. I was finally starting to relax, pushing all the noise, structure and chaos of my evolving thesis out of my mind. Then, something caught my eye, and there it was, pulling out of a side street. A beautiful silver Jaguar MkII, all lights and chrome and flashing wire wheels, just starting to roll. Then there was a roar of exhaust and it was gone, just two little tail lights getting smaller in the distance. I saw it for but an instant and the image has stayed with me for years. All I could think was "How cool, some day I'm gonna have one of those" After that, every so often, I would experience a similar Jag encounter: An S-type saloon whispering past at Stanford, Mrs Robinson or a very close friend of hers, behind the wheel and looking very satisfied with herself. A familiar rumble, then a flash of lights and a silhouette which could only belong to a MkII slipping by in the dark under the fragrant gum trees on the ANU campus in Canberra and another sitting in front of a little coffee shop in Sydney, radiant to my hungover eyes in the bright Australian morning sunshine. A beautiful light blue MkII parked outside a bar somewhere deep in the Santa Cruz mountains. The owner being one of the three ancient white-haired men sitting on the front porch, contemplating the universe, a whiskey on the table, a beer in one hand and a joint in the other. An elegant silver XJ40 seen after dinner at the Wawonna Inn in Yosemite and the monstrous MkX in the rain/snow in Rocky Mt Nat'l Park. It's the surprise factor which gets me every time, suddenly seeing one of these improbable beauties when I least expect it seems to leave a sharp imprint in my mind. As the years went by, I grew comfortable with the knowledge that Jaguars were becoming one of my big interests, that the sexy E-types or XK sports cars were simply too pricey for me, that a Jag sedan would allow me to pursue my interest without excluding my family. I would stop in used book stores and pick up any Jag picture books (car-porn as Anne likes to call them) I found and learned which Jags really spoke to me. I paid some tuition when I finally bought the Jaguar which I had promised myself so many years before. It was a very nice looking silver Daimler/MkII, which turned out to have too much rust underneath for me to repair. More recently I received an education in engine rebuilding with my current Daimler XJ6. You have to be extremely careful asking questions like "Just what would one expect to pay for a good Mark II?" It's the subtle beginning of a long downhill slide. You start out simply admiring them, then you find yourself noticing them on the street. At some stage, you sit in one and get exposed to the seductive atmosphere of the walnut and leather. One morning, it occurs to you that you might want to get one and, later, you find yourself deluding yourself with the thought a Jaguar really can be used as a daily driver. The end mercifully comes when you finally knuckle under and get one. Scott Fisher, elegantly described the Jag hook to the british-cars list: "I was a little boy in a T-shirt and an astronaut's crew-cut; it was, oh, let's call it the summer of 1962 and John Glenn was on our television screens and on the minds of the nation. My dad's best friend since high school, Dick Wells, had a Jaguar XK-120. The car was white, the interior black leather with creases rubbed into the hide. I'd admired the car for some time, and one day he took me for a ride in it. How to describe it? The shock, the sheer exhilarating breath-lessness of that car overwhelmed me. It was as though I had been raised in a world where my only knowledge of women came from a dumpy, 50-something governess who made me take castor oil every day, then suddenly stumbling into the salon of the most beautiful courtesan in Paris as she was dressing -- and seeing her smile at me. All the senses reeled under the assault of the Jaguar. Sight of course: oh my lord the look of that car, front wings sleekly stretching back like the arched spine of the jungle cat that was its namesake; the big round headlights opposite the tall oval grille; and those hips, the curving flanks of the rear fenders where they flow up from the door like the pelvis of a beautiful woman sleeping beside me under a sheet of white silk. Touch? Yes, naturally; the caress of the Connolly under me, the rough jumping of the suspension on the pavement, the buzz of the motor through the chassis as Dick ran it up through the gears. And sound, sound perhaps the most important part of the synaesthesia, the whine of gears beside my hip and the purr of the motor changing to a deep guttural cry -- a sound that I cannot help but call to mind when I read the old cliche about "the cough of a hunting cat." Some new senses for me opened up in my relationship with cars that day. Smell: hot Castrol on aluminium, Wilton wools, hair-jute padding mildewed slightly from being in an open car, the powdery, old-book smell of the leather, and a little of the sweet musk of leaded gasoline from under the bonnet. Temperature, the warm prickle of sunlight on my scalp as we motored topless through golden California lanes in rustic Orangevale, a very rural community outside Sacramento, and the cool riffle of wind through the short golden hairs on skinny, little-boy arms. And also taste... the taste of longing, sharp as spiders at the back of the throat, with a finish just faintly suggestive of fear as the speed rushed through the pit of my stomach when Dick pushed the throttle in the indirect gears. At the end of the ride, the little boy got out and promised the man he would become that one day, he'd have a car like that one. A car that stirred the passions, a car that spoke of the highways between Rome and Brescia, of long treelined circuits in France in the dark hours between Saturday and Sunday, a car that carried in the crystalline structure of its metal the scream of victory -- and the tingling certainty of death that gives life its evanescent, iridescent preciousness. And that's why I've had a Midget, a Sprite, four MGBs, a Mini, a Lotus Cortina, and various non-British sports cars. And why I'm currently looking at TR3s, Alfas, a Cortina GT, and perhaps most importantly my schedule of payments from a couple of book projects to see if maybe, just maybe, I'll have enough to scrape together the price of something with the cough of a hunting cat, fenders like hips under silk, and the blue-white glare of mortality in its Lucas tripod lights." (Scott Fisher) Once you buy a Jaguar, you find out that it's almost impossible to only be into Jaguars halfway and the fire and ice relationship really begins. Friends and family will stare at you in astonishment, with a look in their eyes that says either "I sure wish I had one of those" or "What an idiot!!!" And you will find yourself going thru these same cycles. When I`m feeling good about my Jag, I think "Wow, this is so cool, I _really_ love having this wonderful car." When I`m feeling bad about it I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I got it. But, even after having it off the road for two months last winter for some major engine work, I've found that my perception of the good periods far outweigh the bad. And I do find considerable comfort in the thought that I'm into my Daimler XJ6 for less than the cost of a 6 year old Honda Accord. Part 2: Buying a Jaguar Mk2 Back to Saloon Lovers |
                           
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