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

Stanley Cup Comments

I watched game one. Well, actually I watched MOST of game one. It went like this:

Oiler Goal, Oiler Goal, Don Cherry in an insane suit made of drapery remnants saying that Edmonton would win (did I mention I’m so happy to live close enough to Canada to be able to watch the NHL on HNIC), Oiler Goal. Chuck thinking, wow, these guys are dominating. I had a feeling it would be a five or even four game series.

That is when I had to walk away from the TV and do some things… first I had to carry a bag of rabbit food out to the barn. It took me a while. When I walked back in the house the score was tied 3-3… before I could digest that Carolina scored again… then I noticed Edmonton had switched goaltenders. I then had to make dinner, but kept walking over to the TV to stare slack-jawed at what was happening. I iChat a friend in Vancouver who informs me as to why Roloson was off the ice… his own teammate dumped an opposing player on him and he’s tweaked a knee. That is exactly how my hockey “career” ended. sigh. At least Roli’s happened in a Stanley Cup final instead of a Wednesday night beer league game. :\

(Un)fortunately I was unable to watch game two, but Chuq posted a nice analysis, and this still could be a sweep, or maybe a 5-gamer but not in favor of the Oilers. Oh well.

There have been some legendary Cup Finals where injury-plagued underdogs pull off amazing feats. Ironically, my favorite was in 1987, when the Flyers (a team I hated up to that point) managed to wring seven games from what was essentially the Hershey Bears first two lines, up against the legendary Edmonton Oilers. What got them there was a hotheaded but brilliant Goaltender named Ron Hextall. You can’t win Stanley Cups without goaltending and the goaltender that got the Oilers there is now out. It will be a miracle if the Oilers can pull off a win, much less a Stanley Cup.

I hate to see it go that way, but as Don Cherry says on Coaches Corner “Kids, watch this… YOU DON’T DO THIS: Dump a player on your own goaltender!” I don’t know if Grapes pointed out Marc-Andre Bergeron’s grave error, but he should have.

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…