I’ve been looking forward to getting the maroon shell completed and out the door all Summer – we need space SO bad!
The customer who purchased the maroon shell had a Series 1.5 roadster in Colorado. They purchased the maroon shell, had it converted to a Series 1/1.5 tail, and then sent in their bonnet, doors, and decklid to be restored and fitted to their new shell.
This all meant that once the work was completed, they had to drive over to the shop – from COLORADO – to pick it up – Yikes! On top of that, there was the issue of what to do with their old shell. Even though the rust and past filler was pretty extensive, I of course still wanted to get my hands on it… So around August, I came up with a plan…
My brother-in-law Dave lives in Columbus, OH – and if you’ve read the blog for the past couple of years, you know that I’ve used his place as a rest stop on Western trips in the past. So I agreed to take the maroon shell out as far as Columbus, OH as part of our overall agreement for the work and the return of the old shell core.
Well, about a month later, I started talking to a pair of brothers in Chicago, IL about a somewhat wrecked 1967 E-Type coupe. They had “found” the car in an older gentleman’s garage that they were helping clean out. They said that inside the garage were boxes stacked floor to ceiling, and after a while, they moved one and saw a wire wheel – to which the owner said, “Oh My God, I forgot that was in here! There’s a complete ’67 Jaguar connected to that wheel!” Who forgets they have an E-Type in their garage!?!
This gentleman was in his 80’s, and had purchased the car new in 1967. He drove and cared for the car quite well until in 1980, it was in the middle of a multi-car pile-up at a redlight – getting crunched in the front and the rear. At that point, the local Jag dealership would not fix it, and so it was parked until a solution came along for repairing the shell – which ultimately I guess was me – last Sunday. That’s a LONG time…
So anyway, to keep telling you how this unfolded, Janie and I had a weekend away without the kids in September that we spent in Alexandria, Virginia. I was trading emails with the current brothers who owned the car in the days leading up to that, and that morning in the hotel, while Janie was in the shower, I shot them an offer. I figured that even though Chicago was pretty far, I was already going to Columbus, OH, and I’d do my customer a favor and take their completed shell alot closer to Colorado… It was really just a fleeting idea and a long shot, really…
Well, I was standing in line in the rain waiting to tour Mount Vernon (George Washington’s house on the Potomac River), and I checked my email real quick which is actually kind of abnormal for me – it was their response accepting my offer. “Uh-Oh…” – I said out loud…
“What?” Janie asked…
“I think I just bought another E-Type… In Chicago…” That’s when Chicago seemed REALLY far away!
Since then, I have been keeping e real close eye on things for sale on eBay and Craigslist between here and Chicago, because if you can knock off more things on one trip, it just makes sense, and then – JACKPOT! – I found a great, complete Series 1 bonnet in Ohio just 1 hour North of Columbus!
So fast forward to last week – of course it was another rally in the last days to get the car completed, and we loaded it into the trailer in the dark the night before I had to leave. Then I was off on another whirl-wind, cross-country E-Type adventure! Enjoy riding along!
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- FINALLY – She’s done! 10 hours before I have to pull out of here in the morning!
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- I never trailer the finished shells with the doors or decklid on – there is just no good way to keep them from rattling and safely attached – and it’s just not necessary. We attach all of the stock bonnet latching hardware, and use the latches to keep this closed – it’s foolproof.
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- After a long week rallying to get ready, 5:00 AM came FAST! Here, I am already 2 hours up the road, crossing the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, PA. This is the sun coming up, with the 3-mile-island nuclear plant in the background.
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- Cruising west on the PA turnpike.
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- A shot of the Fall colors in Western Pennsylvania on a GREAT day for traveling! I actually do try to plan these trips for the Fall – I just love the foliage!
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- This is a shot I took going down a small street just outside of Shiloh, OH, where I picked up the Series 1 bonnet pieces – it was a complete bonnet, apart and sandblasted already.
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- The trip started on Friday at 5:00 AM – I picked up the bonnet pieces in Shiloh, OH at about 3:30, and was down to David’s at around 5:30 PM. We hung out at his place, had a few beers and some wings, and then just hit the sack – where I slept like a ROCK! I took this photo the following morning, while headed from Powell, OH to Tinley Park, IL, where I was meeting my customer at a Hampton Inn that Janie set up for me.
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- Here’s agreat shot of the shell xchange, which took place from about 3-5 in the afternoon on Saturday. Janie hit the jackpot on the hotel – this parking lot of a semi-vacant business building was right next to the hotel, and right next to that was a Cracker Barrel where the customer and his son and I shared dinner. They hit the road after that for the 1,001-mile drive back home to Colorado, and I hit the sack at the hotel in the background!
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- OLD – with NEW in the background…
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- …and NEW – with OLD in the background!
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- This shell was converted from a Series 2 to a perfect Series 1!
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- This was the worst bonnet we have ever repaired. We have done some individual panels that were worse, but this one needed MAJOR work on EVERY panel!
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- Hard to believe that everything in the front 6 inches in new metal we made by hand at the shop – including the Series 1 headlamp flanges – this WAS a Series 1.5 bonnet!
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- And our bonnets always look as good (or better – there’s alot more work in here!) on the inside!
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- E-Type Fabs frame rails…
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- New panels in the right place this time…
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- …on both sides.
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- A dead straight rear edge – with a perfect gap all the way across!
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- This was the side that was 5/8″ too short – we added metal seamlessly to make the bonnet fit better that the factory ever did!
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- Standing here in Chicago, it’s hard to believe this bonnet was apart and spread all over the shop in Maryland a week ago!
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- This is our repair of that crazy hole that someone cut into the RH sill – we’ll never know why… See earlier blogs for more on this.
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- AND – some psychopath used a SAWZALL to cut out the radio console brackets!
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- We’ll never know why this beautiful shell was butchered in these spots like this – but we did patch things up nicely.
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- After another solid night’s sleep on Saturday, I took advantage of a free breakfast (I made a waffle…), and then jumped in the truck for the one hour ride up to the heart of Chicago’s suburbs to pick up the ’67 Coupe. This is frost on the windshield – the first I have seen this year – I guess Winter is coming…
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- Here is a shot of the new truck and Harry’s railer outside of the Hampton Inn with some rather nice fall colors! Harry – I don’t think I can EVER repay you!…
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- This is right around the corner from the pickup in Berwyn, IL just west of downtown Chicago. There was block after block of these homes built in the 1920’s – it was VERY cool! Every block had an alley running down the middle, with garages for every house in the alley – VERY midwestern city…
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- There she is!
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- Here are the current owners – Matt and Rob. These guys are sad to see the car go, but reay to admit that they were in over their heads. All the managed to get done in the past few years was take the old girl apart. I will find her a good home – which might even be right here – I really like this one! These guys were a BIG help – we all pitched right in and worked hard to get the car re-assembled partially and loaded into the trailer – Matt’s wife even pictched in when it came time to push her up the ramp (the Jag – not Matt’s wife…)
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- It’s apart, but it’s all there!
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- …some in here…
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- Looks like the interior wasn’t even THAT bad…
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- The frame rails look OK, but I think the bonnet carrier is tweaked – typical. We did manage to get the engine back into place for the trip home – a BIG help for packing up the trailer!
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- The doors look fantastic!
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- The wreckage is a little worse than I had imagined/hoped for, but the shell is REALLY solid otherwise – just a little rust in the outer sills and that’s it! This is a complete, numbers-matching, Series 1 coupe. It’s going to be a great E-Type again!
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- Finally! She’s in the trailer, with the engine in and the bonnet mounted, plus the center section of the Ohio bonnet strapped on top.
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- And this shell is in there too! And let me tell you, it’s a TIGHT FIT! How tight?…
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- THIS TIGHT! We had to pull the headlamp glass off to give us the extra inches allowed by putting the sills of the roadtser inside the headlamp openings of the coupe!
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- All of the parts in boxes were loaded into these bins and strapped into the back of the truck. On this trip, I got the weight distribution in the trailer and the tongue weight PERFECT! And let me tell you – it made a BIG difference versus some of the trips this year!
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- I finally left Matt and Bob in Chicago at 1:30 PM on Sunday – Central time. So really, it was 2:30 PM for me. Then a weird thing happened – I had this CRAZY idea that I was just going to drive straight through to home – 750 miles! It was weird – I felt like home was just right up here a couple hours, but I just kept driving and driving and wasn’t getting any closer! Janie called and snapped me out of it, and I finally stopped and bit the bullet and got another hotel room in Cleveland, OH at 11:15 on Sunday night.
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- Here’s my room at the Hampton Inn again – that seems to be the right fit for me on comfort and price… I walked in here at 11:15, and walked back out at 6:15 – never saw anything close to daylight. Let me tell you, that bed was COMFORTABLE after 3 days of driving and manhandling dead E-Types!
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- And perfectly situated too – the truck and trailer were just outside my window. I did take the precaution of moving everything in the back of the truck into the trailer before leaving the truck. I just can’t risk some meth-addict coming by and ripping off a set of triple carbs or something so they can turn it in for 75 cents worth of scrap aluminum!
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- The decor of the room made me feel right at home – photos of old buildings that included this antique Ford dealership!
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- On the road again! Now it’s Monday around Noon – going through a tunnel on the PA turnpike.
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- In case you’ve never been in one of these…
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- ALMOST THERE! This is a well-known pair of barns on 896 south, just outside of Strasburg, PA – Amish Country. these two barns are used to dry Amish tobacco – that is what the open boards are for on the side – ventilation.
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- I thought I’d sleep in the hotel and then bang the trip out by noon – more delusional thinking – it took FOREVER – and then at the very end, I got stuck behind this farm equipment – but I didn’t really care by then – once on 896, I feel like I’m home anyway…
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- Another picturesque Amish farm…
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- Finally home at almost exactly 5:40 PM on Monday – exactly 3 and a half days after I left. In the trailer is one complete ’67 E-Type coupe, and one complete Series 1 E-Type roadster shell, frame rails, and bonnet – not a bad score for one trip! What I needed Tuesday was a day of rest, but instead, I was up early again to take delivery of a THIRD new E-Type for Monocoque Metalworks – this ’63 OTS! So in the end, I finally got rid of one E-Type, but came back home with THREE MORE! For a guy with a SERIOUS space problem, we are going in the WRONG direction!
