It was the stuff that dreams are made of…
In February, a Canadian customer wrote to me with photos of a 1966 E-Type FHC project car that he was considering purchasing. He wanted to know if I thought that the car (which was disassembled and not a very pretty sight in its current state) was worth the asking price. I replied with something to the effect of, “I would buy that for sure at that price – go get it” – and didn’t think much more of it…
Well, about a week later, I got another email from him, saying something to the effect of, “I have come to my senses – I’m already working on TWO project E-Types, and I just can’t justify buying this. They still have it available – go get it” – I think his wife my have also gotten wing of this third E-Type purchase…
So I jumped on the phone and by the end of the day, I had made arrangements to purchase the car, and wired the money up to Canada the next day. The seller was the owner of a car repair shop, but it turned out that the E-type was actually owned by his father, who was winding down his own Jaguar repair business. They agreed to keep the car indoors until the snow melted and the weather improved. Finally, in mid-May, my friend Graham and I drove up to out Summer cottage on the St. Lawrence river, turned on the power and the water, and then set out for a long trek the next day to Saint Sophie, Quebec – about 45 minutes west of Montreal. We arrived without too much trouble – it was about three hours north – although we did get lost once and when all of the signs are in French, it’s a little tougher to get back on track!
Now what I should mention is that the son had said that his father had worked on Jags for many years, and had alot of spare parts. He had sent three blurry photos of some E-Type parts on shelves, and so I brought some extra cash to buy some things – the photos had a couple of transmissions, a front wing, a center console, etc… So when we arrived, I took a look at the car, and then suggested that we take a look at the extra parts that they had, and the father – Max – walked me down to a shabby Quonset hut barn surrounded by dead cars – dead exotic cars, that is. And that’s where this story takes a DRASTIC turn…
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- Up early and across the border without too much trouble – we were on the road in Canada when Gordon Lightfoot’s “Carefree Highway” came on the satellite radio in the truck – which I thought was very fitting for our Canadian adventure!
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- It was right around here somewhere that we got off track on the highway…
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- I’m not even sure where or what this is – just very cool.
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- This was SUPER cool – this is not a highway overpass – that is a CANAL up there!
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- This was the walk down to the barn – very muddy…
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- There were old Rolls Royce sedans all over the place – later in the day, Max drove both of these cars up through that mud like he was 4-wheeling!
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- My friend Graham took the photos – and did a great job. Here, he has captured the look on my face as Max showed me “some of the parts…”
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- THIS is what I was looking at…
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- Piles and piles of leftover sheetmetal panels from 50 years of jaguar repairs.
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- There was so much stuff here that I didn’t even know where to start… It was JUST LIKE “American Pickers”… Then they dropped the bomb – “Oh, there’s more – ALOT more…”
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- Next, we hopped up into some old tractor-trailer bodies with shelves that as you can see were FILLED with Jaguar spares. It wasn’t ALL E-Type, but alot of it was…
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- E-Type camshafts…
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- The trailers were LONG – and FULL! That is an E-Type oil pan.
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- E-type steering rack parts and sway bars.
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- This was the only bonnet – a very tired and incomplete Series 2.
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- So I started routing through the panels back in the barn and making piles of what I wanted. These lower valances went into the “no” pile, of course…
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- Here, I’m looking through a pile of excellent rear FHC hatches. Each of these represents a parted out E-Type… It was about this time when yet another bomb was dropped – “There’s also more stuff over at the shop about 15 minutes from here.” My response? – “Let’s Go…”
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- So we trekked back up through the mud to the truck to drive over to “the shop” – passing this parted out Lamborghini Espada on the way. I wonder where the engine and transaxle from this went?…
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- Now we’re at the shop – Laurentide Auto Sport – where Max spent the last 50 years working on Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and Maserati. And let me tell you – there were cars and parts of those makes EVERYWHERE!
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- A Rolls Royce getting a rear wing repaired.
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- WHAT!?! Here’s where that Lamborghini engine went – into this 1939 Plymouth Hot Rod!
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- You don’t see that every day! This car has had MANY engines – a 426 Hemi, a Jaguar E-Type V-12, and now this Lamborghini V-12 complete with 6 Weber carbs!
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- Max said that this was a real 427 Cobra that was wrecked at the Mount Tremblant race track, and refitted with a fiberglass body shell.
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- And Astom Martin on the lift.
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- Another lift was home to this 3.8 E-Type roadster. It has the early, smooth-side oil pan that I need to help out my customer with the 43rd LHD coupe.
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- Another shot of that car.
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- Both of these cars belonged to Max – I don’t even know what the Ferrari is but it was something rare…
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- There were Rolls Royce’s everywhere.
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- And parts were everywhere too – sometimes they were well categorized, and sometimes they were all mixed up…
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- It was a LARGE building that just went on and on – this is an Austin Healey…
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- And even a Messerschmitt!
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- Finally we started getting into more organized parts rooms…
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- Finally, we got to the E-Type parts – “OK – this whole wall, floor to ceiling, is E-Type…”
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- Oh My God – are you kidding me!?! this looks JUST like the shop I grew up in, where my job was to part out E-Types and shelve the parts, then wrap and ship them once they were sold. I knew what everything on the shelf was of course, and I was DROOLING!
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- Another great shot – this is “the deal…” I was COMPLETELY overwhelmed. I wasn’t even sure HOW to start buying things. I figured that American Pickers style on a one-by one basis would take forever. I honestly didn’t know WHAT to do! Look – you can literally SEE the steam coming out of my head! So I did the only thing that seemd to be feasible in this situation, I just opened my mouth and it just came out – “I want ALL of it.”
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- Here is a Morgan Trike that was out front at the shop when we left to go back to the barn. Me struck a deal on “all of the E-type parts you own”, then I gave him all of the cash I had on hand, and agreed to pay the balance on the next trip – by which time Max could actually gather up the stuff.
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- The deal had one caveat – I only wanted to make one more trip all the way up here, so Max agreed that we would load as much stuff into the truck and trailer today as we possibly could.
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- But how to do that in the few hours of daylight that remained? Max had apparently ben down this road before – he cranked up his rather large front end loader, and drove it down to the back of the tractor trailer bodies, and we started up a sort of “bucket brigade” loading up the bucket of the loader itself.
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- The weirdness of this whole scen made it seem even more like a dream – I had to pinch myself several times!
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- Needless to say, I was LOVING this! We eventually filled the back of the truck, back seat of the truck, and inside of the trailer so full that I could barely drive it – and then off we went…
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- Back through Quebec on our way to new York – everything was SUPER flooded…
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- Here we are coming over the bridge between Prescott, Ontario, and Ogdensburg, NY.
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- A shot out the windo of the St. Lawrence river.
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- After some time in Customs on the American side, the sun was just setting over the river in this shot from the NEw York side close to the summer house. It was LONG, HARD day, but well worth the trip! Stay tuned for the second round of this adventure!
