It all came to pass when I escorted this lovely young lady to one of her friends place. Husband wasn't home, so "go to the garage young man and look at the car. And by the way, it's for sale".

Trying to be the new age chap that all Kiwi males are meant to be I obeyed, even though I had been told that the Jag in the garage was a Mark One - I had no real interest in such modern OHC things at that time, and simply went away to fill in time.

But......... there she was. A 1950 Mark V with 42 thousand miles on the clock.

A long thought as to whether I wanted the car, and the cheque book was on the table in about a microsecond. Drove her home to my brother's house, and did a little work before a long ten hour drive to Wellington.

No oil to the top end was the main problem that I found - the car had had a very hard life, and some clown had worked on the engine with much enthusiasm and little skill.

To cut a long story short, I didn't really believe the mileage to be genuine until I stripped the car down for a bit of refurbishment - you know the story, polish one manifold and all the other bits need doing. So off to night-school for some lessons in spray painting, upholstery, welding and four years and two house shifts later she moved under her own power again. And yes, the mileage was correct - original pedal pads, brake parts etc - all the wear was from misuse and abuse rather than being overuse - still had the leather gaiters on the springs.

That first drive was in 1986, and not much has happened since then, apart from some very expensive but poor quality chrome falling off bumpers etc.

In the meantime NZ found personalised plates, and the Mark V got the appropriate ones, even though the old ones were also appropriate.

There's still a lot to be done - as always, but after nearly 14 years a bit of maintenance might not be too unreasonable. A lot of fun, and still a great car.

Regards

Dave Peters