A Jagick, or a Buiguar?

This one is up on eBay right at the moment so if this sort of thing floats your boat, go bid now!

It is basically a Buick with an E-type FHC body. Thankfully it was just an FHC tub, saved from the crusher, not a complete Jaguar lumped and chopped. The latter is a crime, while the former… well let’s just call it “inspiration.” If what Picasso* said is true, this guy is an artistic genius. He stole the most beautiful car design ever, and plopped it down on … well… a Buick. So on the one hand it is a VASTLY improved Buick, but on the other hand it is a horrifically ugly Jaguar! Depends on your perspective I guess. So let’s change our perspective and have a look from the front:

Oh my.

* “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” –Pablo Picasso

A fake 356?

I was out running an errand today and stumbled across this car. It is a psuedo-porsche built from a VW… which in a way is ironic because Porsches are just Psuedo-Volkswagens right? =)

Anyway, while I pull on the asbestos pajamas in preparation for the flames from Porschephiles, have a look at this:


Sorry for the crappy phone-cam images… I literally snapped it from my car as I drove by and did not have time to pull my camera out of my bag. Like so many repro-cars, it gets enough of the detail wrong to throw the whole thing off. It is obviously based on a VW beetle or ghia (likely the latter.) Note the 70’s style 911 wheels. I always liked those “flower petal” wheels on 911s, but they sure look funny on a “356”!

The weirdest of all is the roofline in the back. How hard would it have been to get it to consistently slope? That sedan-notch-thing going on is just bizarre.

I can see building a Speedster, or a Spyder from a VW, but a 356 Coupe? Oh well. Let me know what you think.

BTW: for reference, here is a real one (a hastily edited photo from my own collection… Dr. Fisher’s Porsche from the Forza Amelia… I beat this car on our track day driving a 450sl. 😉 )

New Section: “Weird Seen”

I carry a camera with me at all times… a habit I started 20-some years ago. It has allowed me to capture some interesting images. Being a “car guy” one of the things I try and photograph is interesting cars. I have a collection of photos to share and today I stumbled across yet another “weird car” and came up with the idea of populating my web log with this kind of thing. So here it is… “weird seen”… I hope you like it.

I have enough photos, and run into enough vehicular oddities in life to present several a week, but if you have something of your own, feel free to contact me via email or a comment and even you can contribute to the madness.

Arlington Show & Shine

The Arlington downtown merchants put on a car show the first weekend of June every year. I’m not a big fan of car shows… I’d prefer to DRIVE the car… but this is a hometown event, and I feel it is important to attend. Besides, they need to see something different. These shows are made up almost exclusively of old American cars. Classics, customs, muscle, hot rods, etc. In some years I’ve had the only foreign car there. This year it was a bit different. For one, the turnout was incredible. I showed up an hour after the official start, and they were almost out of room… every block of Olympic Avenue was filled except the northernmost, which is where my car ended up.

Above: The 65E at the north end of Olypmic Ave.

Unfortunately I had to help my son Nicholas do a school project, so I parked it, erected my “it is OK to touch this car” sign, and caught a ride home. Four hours later Nick and I returned to have some lunch, and walk around to check out the cars. Like all car shows, they hand out prizes, but since there is no category for “foreign cars” or “sports cars” or the like, I have no illusions that I’ll win anything… this car is just too different. I do enjoy walking around and looking… and chatting with people about their cars. This year there were quite a few non-US cars. I saw a Triumph TR3A, a Hillman, two Datsun Z cars (though one was “lumped” with an American V8 engine, and the other was chromed beyond belief in the engine bay), a Porsche 911, and an Austin-Healey bugeye Sprite. But the remaining few hundred cars were all out of Detroit.

Here are some of my favorites:

I like this sort of chopped salt-flat racer looking pickup truck.

I love that Datsun Z cars are now coming into “classic” status. The 240s and 260s of course… the less said about the later ones the better… but they were the last of the “affordable sports cars” until the Miata/MX-5 changed the world 20 years later. This is the ‘stock” example at the show today. The “lumped” one was next to it.

Above: Count the sparkplug wires

This was probably the most unique and rare vehicle at the show today, and it quite deservedly won “Best of Show”. It is a 1941 Lincoln, but not your every day Lincoln. It was a custom built factory car of which less than 20 were built, and NOT sold to the general public. These cars were given to Ford family members and company executives. It is a phaeton, with a flathead/sidevalve V-12 engine driving it. It is owned by a guy down in Marysville, the next town south of Arlington, and has been shown at major concours such as Pebble Beach. Here is another photo… of Nick checking it out:

It was certainly cool to see this unique machine here today. MY favorite however was this one:


It is a 1952 Packard. I’ve always loved the pre-war Packards, but this one really drew me in. First of all, it was immense. The proportions of the body and the styling do not really show it, but this car is huge… in that overconfident post-war American way that captures that era so well. It has styling that predicts the future (at least until the early 60s), while paying homage to the past… specifically Packard’s past. The owner was not around, but I would have loved to talk to them about this car. I had to get shots of the pre-war styling cues; the swan hood ornament (above), and the perfect whitewalls and stunning classic Packard wheel hub design:

As I predicted, the Jag won no prizes, but I did have several people complement the car, and a couple tell me it was their favorite. The gearheads all stared in wonder at the XK engine, which to the average American car guy appears to be technology from another planet… everything is there, but it is all shaped differently and in different places!

Nicholas & I went home and finished his school project, then I spent some time on my car project, the new (old) air intake system. I’ve finished sanding the plenum, and was able to hit its bottom with the first shot of hammerite tonight:

Still looking for the filter cannister…

Finally… it is June!

So we can flip our KZOK calendars over to that shapely gorgeous thing. Too bad the girl is in the way! 😉

Henry Ngan (photog) and Dave Webber (A.D.) did an awesome job with that photo. The car looks way better in that shot than in real life!

The Arlington “Show & Shine” is this weekend, time to wash the car.

More parts restoration.

I’m calling it “parts restoration” because the car is for all intents and purposes “restored” already, despite my having to correct what seems to be an endless and very expensive stream of mistakes by the original restorer.

While not really a “mistake” I’m also putting some modifications made to the car back to “stock.” One of those modifications is the air filter setup. Like other pointless debates (mac vs pc, emacs vs vi, democrats vs republicans, etc) the subject of air filtration on the Jaguar E-type is usually a cause for a flame-fest on the Internet. In one camp are the “stock” people, who insist that the Jaguar engineers knew what they were doing and built an excellent system that allowed a LOT of cool, fresh, filtered air into the big triple SU HD8 carbs along an optimal path. In the other camp are another group who say that modern, washable pancake filters from a company called K&N are the bees knees. Oddly the folks in the latter camp seem to either be those who have bought such systems, or those who sell such systems.

The person who restored my car, Dan Mooney of Classic Jaguar, is one of the latter. He sells the K&N’s and like all in the “K&N camp” claim that they increase the performance of the engine. I’ve noted that the claims on his site have been toned down a bit of late, and now it seems he’s pushing the looks (Mr. Mooney has a fetish for billet aluminum it seems) more than the “added horsepower” and whatnot. Thankfully, everything that has ever been on the web, stays on the web:

These are the air filters that your E Type needs! Manufactured to the highest standards by K&N, they offer real performance gains and significantly increased engine life. No more costly replacement filter elements - these filters will be with you as long as you own your car. Beautifully encased in their custom made stainless steel housings and precut and drilled by Classic Jaguar's own technicians...
–Classic Jaguar website, circa 2000

(a tangent: Poke about various web archives and you’ll see that the earliest versions of the Classic Jaguar website prominently feature my car. I’ve said many times that this car went a long way to establishing the reputation of Dan Mooney. Perhaps it will continue to do so, but in the opposite direction.)

My engine did not see any increase in life whatsoever, since it ran for a bit more than 10,000 miles before requiring a very expensive rebuild. A rebuild that I had to pay for out of pocket with no help, or refund from Mr. Mooney or Classic Jaguar thankyouverymuch.

Given that everything else about the car, at least mechanically, has been a disaster, I have zero faith in these claims, and zero faith in the judgement and skill set of Dan Mooney. He may be a fine salesman, but I don’t believe his knowledge of mechanical engineering ranks very high. The K&Ns may have had nothing to do with the engine’s demise, but I’d like to remove all traces of Dan Mooney and Classic Jaguar from this car… much like he has removed virtually all traces of this car and it’s previous owner (my father) from the Classic Jaguar website. Dan can try, like Stalin, to rewrite history, but I can restore what has been retouched back into the historical record.

I’ve been slowly acquiring the parts required to re-install the stock air cleaner on my car. I showed the trumpets in an earlier post. You also got a glimpse of the plenum from the original eBay picture. You will note that they only showed the bottom.

Here is the reason why:

The top had been very crudely painted… twice. Once white, and then red. The red was likely overspray from the car it came from. So I’ve been slowly sanding the old paint away. The above photos were taken at a halfway point. I forgot to snap a photo before I started.

The remaining bit is the filter canister itself, which like the trumpets and plenum sell for way too much money. I’m not in a hurry, so I know I’ll find a good one eventually. When that happens I’d like to offer my car up as final, authoritative proof, that will settle the pointless debate once and for all. I’ll find a dyno and test the car before and after. The only variable will be the air filters, so we’ll know which side of the debate is right.

Car flies farther than plane.

That is not a photoshop job… that is an actual photograph.

I’ll let that sink in a bit…

This is a photograph of an Aston-Martin in mid-flight, during a practice lap at Mid-Ohio last weekend. It flew farther than the Wright Brother’s inaugural airborne adventure.

Amazing that it maintained attitude and didn’t engage in any aerobatics during the flight.

Amazing. Here it is on video: