This is not the one I saw but you get the idea.
Posted on 10/04/2009 7:29:17 AM PDT by vikk
GEORGE SWEEPER, who has nurtured his 1968 Jaguar E-Type for nearly 40 years, has come up with a new defense of the British brand’s reputation for poor reliability.
“There may have been many bad ones made,” he concedes. “I got one of the good ones.”
Mr. Sweeper recalled a road trip that he and a friend made from New York to California in 1981.
“We drove 58 hours to Oakland,” he said. “We drove and drove and drove. We saw the sun come up. We saw the sun go down. We went to the bathroom at the same stops. We got on highway 80 and stayed on it.”
There were no breakdowns.
A few years earlier, he had spent six weeks zigzagging across the country, covering 10,000 miles. The only thing that broke on the Jaguar was a fan belt, at the Grand Canyon. “But I carried a spare,” he said.
Mr. Sweeper, who lives in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, says his Jaguar is pushing 185,000 miles. He enjoys driving. Briskly and far.
“I have a passion for it; I have an addiction to it,” he said on a recent Saturday afternoon. He was on his way to Lime Rock Park in the northwest corner of Connecticut to cheer on his mechanic, Terry Lippincott, who was racing an E-Type in the vintage event there.
The two met five years ago, when Mr. Sweeper needed a dent repaired; his New Jersey mechanic, Motorcraft Ltd., did not do body work.
“Terry knew I didn’t have a lot of money,” Mr. Sweeper said. “So he said, ‘George, I’ll charge you only what I pay for the parts, and if you want to come down and help me work on your car, I won’t charge you as much for labor.’”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So that's how it is with jag owners...
Thanks for posting. Great looking car and good story about a true “bro-mance” between a man and his machine. The Jag E series is one of the best looking cars in history.
And Datsun/Nissan ripped them off for another one of the best looking cars, the original 240Z.
Ah, road trips.....wifey and I recently spent just over four weeks and 7000 miles in our 12 year old Camry toodling around the entire lower third of the country, coast-to-coast -- as much as possible on back roads.
Trip of a lifetime; as we were approaching home, we both declared that we could have just kept on going.
This is not the one I saw but you get the idea.
This guy lives in Fort Greene? I used to live there. Burglars pried the wrought iron bars out of my brownstone windows in order to steal my meagre belongings. And he keeps this beautiful car there?
Looks like a hot dog in search of bun in my opinion, but of course that’s just my opinion.
Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) would call that photo automotive pornography.
It’s a very different neighborhood now, very gentrified and upscale. But he has to be putting that in a garage, not so much for the car theft, but for the dings and scratches you would get parking on the street there. Narrow streets in that neighborhood.
I am impressed with anyone who keeps a classic car in pristine shape in the Northeast.
He’s had a car for 40 years and it only has 185000 miles on it?? My Nissan Sentra (1999) has 165000 miles on it now - I’m catching up!
I own a ‘71 240z. It also looks like an Alfa Romeo from the 60’s.
Actually, with the 240Z, do you know the original suggested name for that car? It was suggested by the Japanese, but the American honcho on the west coast said Americans would think twice before buying a car called this..
It was??????????
My husband and I had one. Young, in love and in a 240Z, life was good.
Princess IIRC
The British reputation for poor automotive reliability is legend.
Why do Brits drink warm beer? Because all their refrigerators are made by Lucas Electric.
Nonetheless, the '60s era Jaguar E-Types are among the most beautiful cars ever created.
My uncle had one of those when I was young. I can remember sitting in the passenger seat with my hands over my eyes peeking between my fingers as we flew through the hills of WV.
Loved the daredevil feeling of speed, but almost afraid to look. Ofg course my parents would have killed him if they had known how fast he drove with me in the car.
He traded that car for a Mercedes and then the Mercedes for a Rolls.
My father always had a big Chrysler for the family car and an MG or Triumph for himself.
Fairlady
Was it not christened as the Fairladt “z”?
Only the NY Times would believe that this breathtakingly good looking E-Jag wasn’t an annoyingly frustrating maintenance hog POS.
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