This Winter is NEVER going to END!!!
I hate to just join the masses and complain about this Winter, but honestly, enough is enough already! Fortunately, though, my latest adventure took me VERY far away from it, and the warmer weather was a VERY welcome change!
We finally found a good home for our ’66 FHC project car, and the first order of business for this trip was to deliver it. This car has been around here since May of last year, and it took a long time to find her a new home – due mostly to the fact that she LOOKED like an ugly duckling – AND was a non-matching numbers project as well…
This is the third E-Type in a row that I have sold to a British guy, and let me tell you, they are tickled pink when they get them – I LOVE IT! It’s great to deal with people this way – it truly does make me fell good – like I’m the guy that is making their dreams come true!
This ’66 FHC was the car that initiated the LARGE parts purchase in Montreal, Canada last year. I was told about the car from a good Canadian customer who already owned 2 E-Types, and was going to buy this one as well, but eventually “came to his senses” as he put it, and turned me on to it. Go back into the blog about a year, and look for the two blogs titled “Jackpot!” – parts 1 & 2 for details on that adventure.
My best friend from High School, Graham, went on that trip with me, as he does about once a year. He is a fun companion and a BIG help – a lifelong friend that I’m comfortable with, so we never run out of things to talk about, and also a past 4-wheeling buddy, so he’s a big help when things get rough with winches, trucks, trailers, etc. He’s the #1 pick when you play the mental game, “OK, you’re stuck on a desert island with a handful of people, who are they?…” Wait – I mean #2…
So it was a bit serendipitous that he came along on this trip, to deliver the same car to it’s new home – meaning that he and I picked it up in Montreal, Canada, and then delivered it in Gainesville, Fl – 1600 miles!
We had been planning this trip for a while, and I set it up for late February as a good time to get out of the Northeast, and head to Florida – man, did THAT ever turn out to be true!
We left at 5:30 AM on Thursday morning – planning to head to Savannah, GA to spend the first night – I wanted to get the lion’s share of the driving out of the way on the first day. Janie and I had been to Savannah years ago, and I knew it was a neat little waterfront town with alot of good restaurants on the water.
Monday – Wednesday were CRAZY getting ready, and it was about 7:00 PM Wednesday night before I was done… One of the key parts of this sale of the ’66 FHC was that I was delivering it, because it was VERY much apart. So of course, it took ALOT longer to gather everything up and load it than I had planned for (as usual…). I had promised her new owner, Dave, to pull together as complete a project as possible, and following through on that by digging through countless bins over at storage was a multi-day task.
When I bought this car, it came with a period and correct Jaguar block and head, but they were not the originals from this car, and were not E-Type either – though that is only because they were stamped with other serial numbers as they went into a 420G (I think…). When we picked up the car in Canada, along with TONS – literally – of other parts, we also got a beat up and stripped E-Type head, and an E-Type block. In the end, I gave Dave the 420 head and block, because they were the best condition, and they will work fine – and he agreed. I did write down the serial number of the 4.2 E-Type head, just to eventually look up it’s vintage…
Just about the last thing I did on Wednesday night was pull out the title and data plate for the car, to make sure I had the right stuff and it all matched. As I looked at the data plate for a few minutes, something caught my eye… OH MY GOD – that beat-up head casting over there is the head for THIS CAR!!! That is IMPOSSIBLE – but true!!!
When we picked up the car, it was all in one big pile with the 420 head, and that other E-Type head casting only was in the back of one of those tractor trailers full of parts on the shelf. there must have been two dozen Jag heads in there, but it was the only E-Type, and he said to take it since our deal was for “all of the E-type parts I have…”
That shop owner had owned this ’66 FHC 20 years ago, sold it to another guy, and just recently bought it back before he sold it to me. That “dead” head ws not SUPPOSED to be from this car, but it is… CRAZY! This BLEW MY MIND – I just don’t overlook things like this – EVER – but this car had lost it’s original engine, and the idea that miraculously, a part of it was in with that other junk was just so far away from possible, that I never even looked…
SO – when we dropped off the car, I told this story to Max and Lisa – Dave’s son and wife – sadly, he was away on business for the delivery. And I also told them that the head is on its way down (storage was closed by the time I figured this out and then I left at 5:30 the next morning). It’s on it’s way down – free of charge. It belongs with this car.
So there you go, Dave! Thanks for trusting me to put together as complete and restorable a project as possible. For your faith, your non-matching E-Type just got ALOT closer to a full numbers-matching car! – Chuck
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- Wouldn’t you know – as soon as we got down the road a few miles, we ran into a SERIOUS Mid-atlantic snowstorm!
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- I-95 was a NIGHTMARE of snow and slush! It was crazy to head out into this, but our plans were very set with ALOT of people, and I figured we would just drive through it soon enough since we were heading south…
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- But it just kept GOING! I think this is South of Washington DC – 3 hours into the trip!
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- Believe it or not, this is North Carolina!
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- The roads were finally dry, and the scenery was beautiful!
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- I doubt these trees have seen snow like this in over a decade – or two! Only I-95 was clear – when we pulled off to get gas, the snow was 6 inches deep!
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- Once it warmed up enough to remove the Winter coats, Graham surprised me with this custom T-shirt he had made up for the trip!
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- I think this is crossing the Savannah River just inside of Georgia. We actually made good time, checked into the hotel, and went out for a pretty fancy seafood dinner right on the river in the historic district of Savannah.
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- We slept in a bit, had a big breakfast, and then headed down the road three more housr to Dave’s house. Here she is all packed up in the trailer. Part of the deal was for me to assemble the makings of a “better bonnet” – as the original from this car was just on the ragged edge of restorable, and Dave figured it was over his head, which I agree it probably was. This center section was one we had in storage that I though I could hammer out decently enough for him, but in the end, I sliced off the whole nose and made a whole new nose. It turned out GREAT – and I forgot to take photos of the finished piece in primer!
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- Here she is in the new garage of their new home – right next to the “warm-up project” – an MGB.
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- Max and Lisa taking care not to scratch the new cabinets with the freshly restored center section.
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- Here is the head for this project – though Dave will probably now use the matching # head if it is rebuildable. The transmission is a correct EJ close-ratio, full-synchro box – it’s the one I picked up in Ohio, from the guy with the 1959 Mercedes 300SL roadster in his house!
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- Take a good look – I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I’m pretty sure that Dave and his son Max are going to do GREAT things with this E-Type! Part of our deal was to include EVERY SINGLE panel that the car needs – including a pair of NOS rear wings!
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- Max had to head out early to get back to work, and Graham and I finished up the unloading, did the paperwork with Lisa, and checked out their new house and property. Their home is built in the center of a 20-acre piece of farm property they purchased, and the land around the house is leased out to anotehr farmer, who keeps 4 cows and a bull there. Lisa seemed very concerned throughout the drop-off that the cows would wander over – she said they are “very nosey” – and when we came out of the house finally, there they were!
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- And they sure were NOSEY just like she said!
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- And THAT’S not a cow! Lisa was adament that we not go out there while the bull was around. We had disconnected the trailer and left it outside the fence to drive the truck right up to the garage and unload the engine block. Graham and I really got a kick out of this, and were daring each other to “run out, run around the trailer, slap the bull in the face, and run back in here…” – which Lisa did NOT want us to do!
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- Instead, she said that she often nudges the cows out of the way to get into the driveway, and got into her SUV and started hearding! This cow shuffled along right away…
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- …but this guy would have none of that! He put up quite a stand-off there for a few minutes, and now Graham and I were getting a little freaked out – thinking this thing is going to stomp the hell out of that car! But eventually, he just shuffled off – PHEW!
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- And we hooked up the trailer and headed down the road to the next stop. Here is a shot of Dave’s son, Max, upon seeing the E-Type for the first time. Yeah – these guys are going to finish this one!
