RESTORE & RENEW SALE. See Inside // ISSUE 2, 2021 EST.1961

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1 RESTORE & RENEW SALE SAVE UP TO 25% See Inside // ISSUE 2, 2021 JAGUAR E- TYPE EST TH AN NIVER SARY MossMotors.com/E-Type60th MossMotoring.com

2 We re not making light of Covid-19. It has had an effect on everyone, and we re worse off for it. But we are a community that sees rainbows in drips of oil on the concrete. We have eyes quick to spot silver linings. During a time when social distancing separated us and safety measures kept us homebound, Moss customers found themselves spending more time in their garages and workshops. "Pandemic Projects" gave us a way to occupy our minds and lift our spirits. If your British car was a beneficiary of project time, we d like to hear about it. Share with us your story and photos of your Pandemic Project. Our hope is to print several submissions in the Fall issue of Moss Motoring and catalog an additional collection for readers to enjoy online at MossMotoring.com. (Stories over 500 words will be considered for the magazine.) The pandemic, we hope, will soon be in our rear view mirror. With your stories, we ll preserve some of the enjoyable moments to look back on. Submit your story and photos to: MossMotoring.com/pandemic-project Pictured Above: Dick Burk, Jim Moscardini, John Buescher, and Tom Burke from the Capital Triumph Register. Celebrating 60 years Excellence Limited Edition E-Type 60 TH Anniversary Print By artist David Townsend Sports Car Art From its exciting launch at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961 to its modern day status as a revered automotive legend, the Jaguar E-Type has earned its loyal following for 60 years. Description Part # Roadster $ Description Part # Coupe For the full range of available products, see page 25 >>>

3 RESTORE & RENEW SALE CLUTCH // SUSPENSION // S AV E UP TO 25% Sale Valid: 5/17 6/11/21 EXTERIOR BODY // & MORE! // SEE CENTER SECTION FOR DETAILS // 10 E-Type Origins Adventure Awaits! Brother s Road Trip 15 The Claims Assessor 60 years ago a Jaguar landed on the world s stage and set it on fire. Life throws you curves. Your best response is to steer for all you re worth! Take a journey back to the misadventures of youth in a car that inspired them. Imagine it s your job working for British Leyland in the mid70s, keeping tabs on quality. 4 On the Cover: The busy assembly tracks creating works of motoring art at Browns Lane. 7 there s more online! The tip of the iceberg. That s what you re holding in your hands. The MossMotoring.com archive is chock full of stories and a wealth of technical advice. If you could just see the shelves and file cabinets of material we re gradually digitizing holy smokes! But it is worth it! Check out today!

4 writers and photographers WE WANT YOU! Share your experience, wisdom and talent with British car enthusiasts across the country. Contributors whose work is selected for use in the magazine will receive Moss Motors Gift Certificates! Now, since there is no way to print all the terrific stories and tech articles that are sent to us, we will place relevant and first-rate submissions on MossMotoring.com for all to enjoy and benefit. Sorry, submissions that are published online are not eligible for gift certificates. Kid with the E-Type Every young kid should have an Uncle Glen to steer them toward automotive greatness One Last Time A swan-song sports car. The perfect one may have many flaws in order for it to be just right in the end. editor@mossmotors.com The very best way to submit material is via . Please attach digital photos at full size when possible. Film photographs and handwritten articles may be mailed to: Editor Moss Motoring 440 Rutherford St. Goleta, CA $ 200 Gift Certificates Three- to four-page stories and articles (approx words). This includes: technical/restoration articles, historic accounts, Club and Event experiences and anything that will inspire or entertain. Please include pictures for us to choose from the more, the better. Editorial contributions to Moss Motoring are welcomed and should be ed to editor@mossmotors.com or mailed to Editor Moss Motoring, 440 Rutherford St., Goleta, CA Moss Motors assumes no responsibility for lost or damaged materials. Materials accepted are subject to such revision as required to meet the requirements of this publication. Unless otherwise specified, all correspondence will be considered for publication. All materials accepted become the sole property of Moss Motors, Ltd., which reserves the right to reprint/ republish accepted materials Moss Motors, Ltd. Published by Moss Motors, Ltd., 440 Rutherford Street, Goleta, CA Publisher: Robert Goldman Moss Motoring Team: Editor: David Stuursma Creative Editor: Brandin Aguayo Layout Designer: Phrankie Guerrero Staff Photographer: Moss Creative Contributors credited individually $ 100 Gift Certificates Cover and main feature photography, general interest stories or medium-length tech articles. $ 50 Gift Certificates Tech tips, cartoons, illustrations, humorous anecdotes and other odds-n-ends that help make Moss Motoring great.

5 LOUD PEDAL Robert Goldman As I sit down to write, the news reaches me, Robert "Kas" Kastner has passed. While it may be that no single individual wrote the book on Triumph performance, it was Kas who finished it. As a racer with no funds, he had no choice. It was either make stock parts go faster, or watch from the back of the pack. If I had put half the effort invested in studying his TR performance guide into my school work, I might have graduated with honors. There are any number of web sites or books which document Kas achievements in detail. Among Al Moss personal photographs, there is at least one image from Riverside with Kas clearly visible, square roll bar and all, leading the charge. Kas had the ability, and force of personality necessary, to be a successful competitions manager. To prove the point, he did it twice, for two very different manufacturers. I was lucky enough to meet Kas some years ago at Road Atlanta. The Friends of Triumph were holding their Kastner Cup race event. Tim Suddard, the publisher of Grassroots Motorsports, asked if I would drive Mr Kastner around during the lunchtime track parade. Tim provided a TR6 for the task. The memory fades, but there was something about the car which made it hard for me to drive. Either the seat was stuck too far back, or the brakes didn t work. Whatever it was about the car, I wasn t about to let Kas think I couldn t drive. Even though it was a low speed tour, I felt it necessary to touch each curb at the proper spot, as if to say "yeah, I know how it s done." Such antics were entirely unnecessary. Kas was a perfect gentleman, and answered my every silly question as we toured the track. Though not a collector of celebrity, circumstances have given me the opportunity to spend at least a few minutes with several very effective people. By and large, they share certain characteristics. They are extremely focused. They can withstand no half measures. They see their goals, the path forward to those goals, and have the quick twitch intellect to meet every challenge; head on and with a plan. Such people can be a little scary. They don t dwell on the past, and won t give time to those undeserving of their focus. The rest of us can join the team and learn, or be left behind. Kas had long since left his auto racing days behind when a TR owning friend of mine, who also can only do things the right way, picked up a phone book and dialed the number for R.W. Kastner. Whatever was said in that first cold call, it was enough to set Kas on a path which would reintroduce him to new generations of Triumph drivers. Ultimately, he re-embraced the Triumph community, accepting the mantle of elder statesman. Kastner s "Ready to Race" autograph now adorns a limited number of lucky TRs. Sadly, there will be no more. The guitarist Jimmie Vaughan once sang the words "Heaven done called another blues stringer back home." I don t have as clever words for the automobile industry, but one of the British sports car A-Team members has gone home. So long Kas. Thank you for everything you did. Thank you for sharing your life with the rest of us. MM Robert "Kas" Kastner MossMotoring.com 3

6 By Graham Robson March 15, 1961 a special date for Jaguar enthusiasts it was the moment when the new E-Type met its public for the first time. It was the day almost every other sports car in the world suddenly looked dowdy, when Jaguar realized to their joy that they would have real problems in meeting all the orders that came flooding in. The enormous struggle to get two cars to the Geneva Motor Show had been worth it. Of course it wasn t easy. And those who merely bask in the theory that there had been a leisurely, well-ordered plan to bring this amazing machine to market should now think again. The fact is that it took four years to get from 4 Moss Motoring First Thoughts to First Deliveries. This splendid road car had started life as a racing sports car, and all manner of corners had to be cut to make it happen at all. Let s start with the Le Mans 24 Hour race of The Jaguar D-Type had just won this prestigious event for the third consecutive year but the sport was in turmoil because the rules were about to change. For 1958 and beyond, the cars would have to have engines of less than 3-litres! Ferrari was delighted, but Jaguar was not. The D-Type, of course, had run 3.4 or even 3.8-litres. Accordingly, Jaguar cancelled its works motor racing efforts, and development of a new car got the green light. This led to what we know as the E-Type project getting under way behind the firmly closed doors of Comps at Browns Lane, Allesley (a suburb of Coventry). Nothing about this project was yet released to the public. Work started on the design, build and initial testing of a single prototype, known as E1A. Although it was smaller and lighter than the last of the D-Types (much of the new car s structure was in aluminium, whereas the road cars would revert to steel), it bore a striking visual resemblance to those cars, and at first only had a 2.4-litre engine. As with the D-Type before it, the styling was by Malcolm Sayer, who used closely guarded mathematics to lay out the sinuous curves.

7 By the end of 1957 E1A, initially without headlamps, a windscreen or a registration plate, had been painted a rather insipid pale green, and chief test driver Norman Dewis began what seemed like an endless series of runs, mainly at the British motor industry s proving ground at MIRA, a converted World War II airfield complex, close to Nuneaton, a mere ten miles north of the Jaguar factory. Amazingly, news or photographs of this sensational car were never published even though E1A was driven on public roads to and from MIRA on each outing. Dewis made sure that he occupied what we might call unsocial hours in making these trips and of course in those days the specialist press was very loyal in not breaking embargoes, or publishing spy shots. Even within the factory, little was known about this new project, for every Comps staff member and mechanic was well trained in keeping his mouth shut! This was the time during which I was lucky enough to join Jaguar as a graduate trainee, and as I once wrote here, in Moss Motoring: "Jaguar kitted us out with the famous apprentice-green overalls when we arrived. I was lucky, as I sometimes found time to go walk-about. It was those strolls immediately after the canteen lunch which told me so much for somehow the Apprentice-green kit was an acceptable disguise which E2A in the original race car, as raced in the USA were rarely challenged by officious supervisors, and it was on one of those wanderings that I first spotted the original light-green E-Type prototype on a ramp in Experimental. That was sheer happenstance, for it had recently been completed, in great secrecy in the Competition Department, which was nearby, but they didn t have a ramp of their own. Chief test driver Norman Dewis was with the car on that day, treating it very much as his baby, which effectively it was " It was in 1959, by which time I had been moved into the Experimental department to learn about the way the first cars of a new range would be built, then modified, then re-built, then up-dated, then finalized (you get the picture, I hope). I realized that the E-Type project was seriously going ahead, and by the banging and sounds of activity over the partition it was clear that Comps were building up a real E-Type race car: that machine E2A was unveiled in 1960, a year before the E-Type was officially revealed. It was unsuccessful at Le Mans but went on to have some race successes in the USA under Briggs Cunningham s control. In 1959, though, the first of the steel-bodied prototypes began to take shape in Experimental, and (from a distance) I could see what problems were clearly evolving. The basic problem was that the E-Type was going to be structurally different from the XK150 it would replace it had a steel center/rear unit-body monocoque, allied to a multi-tube front end, instead of a separate chassis it had all-independent suspension (the XK150 had always had a beam rear axle), and it was going to need to be assembled at Browns Lane in a different way from before. As far as I could see, the problem centered around that unit-body, for MossMotoring.com 5

8 Jaguar thought it could sell at least 5,000 E-Types a year, this being a build rate they could not tackle themselves, and one that was not large enough to interest big independent body shell builders like Pressed Steel. The sensible alternative the middle ground, as it were was to approach Abbey Panels, (they were located in Coventry, close to the earlier Jaguar factory which had been vacated in 1951) who had provided many of the body sections for the D-Types. But one hundred body shells, or part shells, every week? Could Abbey Panels cope? They could, but kept on demanding ways that assembly, or the interaction of one set of pressings with another, should be changed. Many was the time when I would see Technical Director William Heynes crawling all over the prototype, his immaculate suit gradually getting smeared, but finally getting agreement on another detail from Abbey Panels. Matters became more complicated when a fastback coupe version was proposed (this had not even been considered at first), for yet more changes were needed to the structure to cope with this. Jaguar, though, could not deal with everything at once, for the arrival, and launch, of the new Mk II saloons took precedence in By the end of that year, too, I had been moved into the engineering design office, where I took on all manner of minor jobs soon realizing just how much of the E-Type s engineering had to be settled. Not only the notorious battle of Robson vs. an exhaust system layout, plus the bracketry needed to support the engine cooling fan s electric motor but on top of everything else, a complete check layout on drawing board paper (no computers in those days just pencils and two dimensions) to see if the rear suspension links, driveshafts, rear anti-roll bar and exhaust pipes could all exist in the same confined space on each side of the rear axle casing! Somehow or other, though, this fabulous new 150mph car was made ready for showing at the Geneva Motor Show, in Switzerland, where, initially, only one machine, the fast back coupe version, was originally scheduled The very last E-Type Series III of to be on display. Because Jaguar s budget would not hire an aircraft to fly the precious cargo all the way from Coventry (and even though there was an International airport conveniently very close to either end of the trip), it had to be driven the whole way by PR man Bobb Berry. Of course it was a cold European spring, and of course the weather was foul, but somehow the car got a thorough valet cleaning in a Geneva garage on the day before the show s doors opened. But there was more, and dramatically more, to come. Sir William Lyons decided that an open version of the car should immediately be sent to Geneva and because nothing was impossible to Sir William he demanded that this be delivered overnight. Test driver Norman Dewis had no option but to do his Superman bit (as he once told me, in later life) and once reported that: "They asked me to leave the factory and drive direct to Geneva. I had a nice troublefree run and achieved a very high average speed." That, in fact, was a typical understated British way of describing an overnight dash, which started in Coventry at 4pm one afternoon, and an arrival in Geneva at breakfast time the following morning. Oh, and by the way, the distance between the two cities was 730 miles, the trip was overnight, Norman was by himself, there were very few freeways in those days, and there were two border crossings to negotiate, and a 90-minute cross-channel ferry trip to factor in to this scramble. And so it was. The launch of the new E-Type was a huge success, the first orders flooded in, and Abbey Panels, in particular just, and only just, had time to take a deep breath before starting to build bodies in numbers. In fact the archive shows that only 16 cars were built in March 1961, a mere eight followed in April, twentyone in May, and 109 in June. But the job had been done, and Jaguar s designers immediately settled down to working the same miracle on another new car, which, by complete contrast, was the massive Mk X saloon. MM 6 Moss Motoring

9 Story by Carol Joy Patterson and photos by Ralph Saulnier It started with a trembling right hand. Or, maybe much earlier, after a serious head injury when I permanently lost my sense of smell. Anyway, there I was with a diagnosis of Parkinson s. I d already beaten four cancers and was in a holding pattern with a rare lymphoma. Parkinson s gave me real problems at first, but I was able to also put it on hold by experimenting with different medications and doses and exercising a lot. My symptoms disappeared, as long as I took my meds five times a day my handwriting improved, twitchiness and nightmares almost disappeared, and no more shaky hand. I decided to go after some of my dreams while I still could. It s one thing to try something new that scares and challenges you. It s another thing to do it as a vintage woman with not one, but two, incurable diseases lurking. Would it be too stressful? I acquired a cherry-red antique car last year, just like the one I had owned in my twenties. I was rather hesitant at first, but my gearshift abilities came back and so did my smile. She s an adorable 1953 MGTD that I call "Lulu." To my great fortune, I have a great mechanic a neighbor who renovated the bits that needed attention, and I was off, driving her only in perfect weather with the soft top down. My timid short excursions seemed long and glorious. I felt renewed. MossMotoring.com 7

10 Then this spring, the TV production company I run with my husband, Lawrence, got the contract to produce the legendary annual road rally, Targa Newfoundland. Self-employed people never really retire, even with Parkinson s. I had produced and directed the first Targa television documentary 15 years ago and in several subsequent years automobiles of all shapes and sizes come from across North America to compete on closed-off country and town roads for a full week! 1,600 kilometers total, counting the long transits on the highways. The wild idea came to me: why not enter with Lulu? Lawrence could produce the TV show. I could drive in the relaxed fun category with my mechanic, Lou, along and my brave friend, his wife Carolyn, as my navigator. It s the chance of a lifetime. After lots of paperwork, with safety gear and intercom helmets purchased, a transport lift across land and sea for Lulu, and flights booked for us, we were in St. John s ready to roll. A fascinating array of cars from a brand new Lamborghini Huracan, to Corvettes, to race-prepared Minis and Subarus were geared up for the rally, covered in stickers, engines tuned. We rolled out for a qualifying Day, then for five days of a dozen spread out closedracing stages between five and twenty kilometers each. Every tiny fishing village and busy town seems a long way to reach in Newfoundland but oh-so-worth-it. Volunteers had blocked off the roads so we could drive as fast as we dared. The scenery was stunning. It was hard to keep eyes on the road. The other Targa drivers and officials were pretty patient with us driving the slowest, oldest car. We got lots of thumbs-up from them, even as we heard rumors of bets against us finishing even the first day! The days were long but the weather cooperated except for one very windy, rainy day. We returned each evening to either St. John s or Clarenville, to lick our wounds and tune our engines.

11 The biggest challenge for me was remembering to take my meds on time and finding places to pee in the wilderness! Newfies are known for their hospitality. I was desperate to pee at our lunch break, having downed a lot of levadopa pills to beautifully control my tremors. A volunteer saw the driver lineup at the only washroom. "Deary," she said, "just go across the street, in the front door, up the stairs, to the left and the bathroom s down the hall." When I came back, I thanked her and she replied, "Oh, deary, it s not my house!" I was a bit worried that the daily stress would worsen my health. It seemed to have the opposite effect we were running on adrenaline and grins. At the end of the last day of competition, after 1,600 kms and with only the last five km stage through the charming village of Brigus remaining, Lulu refused to start. My service vehicle was not nearby, but other competitors mechanics came to help and eventually got me started, in the true spirit of Targa. It was too late to cross the finish line so the week-long adventure ended with a DNF. It was very disappointing, of course, but a few days later we received Finishers medals as a lovely surprise from a Newfoundland team who had earned theirs previously. What a week! Would I do it again? Absolutely. But, sorry Lulu, in a faster, newer car to the relief of all, I m sure. Hope and trust in the future is what keeps us Parkinson s people going. No time to be depressed. Adventures await! MM

12 By Scott Macdonald If one turns the clock back to the city and school of Berkeley in 1969, it was a very tumultuous and crazy year with the Vietnam War and People s Park. My brother Clyde and I were both glad to be wrapping up our terms at the University of California, and were itching to escape. Clyde was short on wheels. Three years prior he went off to Hawaii for VISTA (Domestic Peace Corps) and told me to take care of his 57 Chevrolet two-door, named Fred. Well sometimes things happen, and it retrospect, maybe that was not Clyde s best idea. I needed the money, didn t have a place to park it, and so I sold it. But we had options. I purchased my 1960 MGA 1600 in the summer of 1966 for $1000 that I saved up after high school as a go-fer at an automotive repair shop. The other alternative was another MGA, a , which I had rescued from the junkyard. Clyde had been driving the He kept telling me it was a Piece of Dung. (Just as a clarification, much later I found out why it had so little power. The centrifugal advance was stuck.) So we loaded up the 1600! That in itself is a major accomplishment. The trunk, which did include a spare tire and tools (always), will haul little else. A shoe box, maybe. We had a luggage rack, and the MG had quite a lot of space behind the seats, even with the top down (always). I have to believe we traveled quite light. We started off from Berkeley, drove through Walnut Creek, passing by Mt Diablo and onto Highway 4 to Stockton. At Copperopolis, we turned right and up the Big Oak Flat Road, over the 6000 ft. pass, and down into Yosemite Valley. By then we noticed the right rear tire was grabbing, locking up with light braking. A quick removal of the wheel and the brake drum indicated a leaking differential oil seal and oil saturated brake shoes. Once that was cleaned up (never thought to check the differential s oil level), we parked and set off on a hike: Upper Yosemite Falls. On that trip I learned there are two ways to get to the falls. One is a goat

13 climb uphill on a three-foot wide trail for about three hours up and an hour coming down. We thought we would be back for lunch. The other way is the way we went. We started about a quarter mile to the east of the Lower Falls, and followed a trail we thought would eventually connect with the goat trail. Nope. We realized our mistake when the only way to continue up the "trail" was to use the ropes someone had so graciously left behind. We were on the wrong side of the falls! You might think the smart thing to do would be to go back down and take the goat trail. No, no, no! Macdonalds never, ever say they are wrong and admit defeat. Carry on and complete the mission, trooper. We barely had any food. I injured my hand and had to rip my undershirt to wrap it up. When we got to the top, all we could see were peaks and valleys. Go west young men and you shall reach the Promised Land, in this case, Yosemite River as it goes over the edge. Well, not taking the goat trail took us a little longer. We started at 8am, and got back at dusk at 9pm. Tired, sore, hungry, thirsty, etc. The next morning we drove back up out of the valley to the top of the world and Tuolumne Meadows. There the MGA had one of its best moments. At 10,000 ft. elevation, cars are down on power and their carburetors can be miss-adjusted. The MGA was purring right along and once passed a Porsche 911 that was struggling at the high altitude! Across the Sierra Nevadas to Lee Vining at SR395, and a big right turn south. SR395 is a great road, with the towering Sierra Nevadas to the west and flat plains to the east. On the way to Death Valley, we stopped for the night at a county park. While I was setting up camp, I got hit on my head with something. Of course I blamed my older brother for antagonizing me. He said he didn t. I d heard that before. But then it happened again. So I stepped away and observed. Turns out an angry, nesting owl was living in the tree above us and the No Trespassing sign MossMotoring.com 11

14 Younger brother Kent on left, Clyde in middle, and I m on the right. was up. We moved our campsite and all was well. We pulled into Death Valley. Not too much to see in the summer, nice mountains and cactus, but too late in the season for wildflowers. There s no escaping the sun and I got light headed while driving. We put the top up for the first time on the trip. So back out to SR395 and heading south. Middle of nowhere. Without a working temperature gauge, I noticed the car was overheating. How could I tell? The oil pressure was starting to read low. We stopped at a pullout, rummaged through the garbage can and collected old milk cartons. Filled them from a nearby stream, and stored them in the passenger seat foot well. Drive four or five miles, stop, refill the radiator to replenish the leaking water pump, and repeat. 12 Moss Motoring In Bakersfield we found an auto parts store and asked for a water pump for a 1960 MGA. The clerk asked, "Do you want the kit or the rebuilt?" We were surprised that they had more than just parts for Fords and Chevys. I looked at Clyde and figured we would splurge on the rebuilt. We installed it in the parking lot, and enjoyed an uneventful drive back to Berkeley. I have always, or almost always, had a sports car in the garage. Did it always run? No. The passion started with one MGA, then a Bugeye Sprite with dreams of turning it into a SCCA race car, then another MGA for parts but then I got that second MGA running. Later, I was caretaker of an Austin-Healey 3000 MkIII for a friend who went to work in Saudi Arabia, but it burned up in my garage. That was followed by an Alfa Spider, then a Porsche Targa, then a yellow supercharged Miata, and then another Bugeye Sprite in parts. After I fully restored the Sprite, I decided to stretch myself and learn how to do body work and paint, something I had never done. So I bought a TR6 on ebay. I will never do that again. This thing had sat in a swamp rusting away until the PO covered it in body putty, painted it and sold it to me. So I bought another TR6, and took body work classes at the local junior college. I finished the TR6, taking about 18 months to complete. And then a year and a half ago, a friend had a TR4A that had a bad motor, but was otherwise a show car. So I bought it, rebuilt the engine, and am now driving it. As you can plainly see, British oil runs through my veins. MM

15 By Kyal Long April 2017, I was almost a year into my "big boy job" and wanted to get into a pre- 1970s car. I knew if I didn t do it now, I never would. Life changes quickly and other priorities would take center stage. I was looking for a car I could tinker on and take fun drives on the weekends. A car I wouldn t freak out over if someone dinged the door, but also something unique. Beginning my search, I learned a lot. The first being I actually didn t know anything about classic cars. Turns out they cost big money. I had to adjust my search parameters. I probably wasn t going to get that Chevy Nomad, or an Eleanor Ford Mustang. Small German cars seemed to fit better for my budget. I checked out Karmann Ghias and Bugs for months. Meeting up at sellers houses, in shopping center parking lots, and car shows. Something about them never clicked though. It felt like I was forcing myself when my goal should be to buy an older car that I would be obsessed with. That, and these cars were neglected. I didn t mind fixing mechanical problems, but I didn t want to deal with bodywork. The cold reality was setting in that I might have to wait a few more years after all, and owning a classic car at 26 was just too ambitious. My search turned into a half a year mission. Everyday I hopped onto classic car selling websites. Nothing, nothing, nothing But then something! Cruising around Craigslist I spied a cool two-door roadster. From the pictures the paint was decent, the body looked straight, and the car was in a garage, so I was hopeful for minimal rust. I hadn t considered a convertible, really, and this was in my budget, so why not have a look? After work, I went to check out a little British car. When I got there, it was still sitting in the garage the pictures were taken in that s a good sign. I ran a magnet around the car and it stayed with the body the whole time another good sign. There were wood screws where the hood pins would go okay, a weird sign. Anyway, I asked if the seller if he could remove his screws and open the hood. The engine bay looked neglected, but also not MossMotoring.com 13

16 neglected. There was gunk all over the block, but I saw an alternator instead of a generator, and the coil looked fairly new. Strangely, there was writing all over the firewall. When trying to trouble shoot the car s wiring issue, the owner wrote on the firewall instead of on a piece of paper. His weirdness picked up speed in the interior. It had marine carpeting. And missing panels. But brand new upholstered seats. A sort of jack-ofall-trades vibe was going on in there. Of course the car had other issues to address: It was missing a grille, it had a cracked windshield, the gauges didn t move, and really nothing electrical worked except the ignition. Shopping and meeting up with sellers I learned each one had this in common: they all believed they had the best car on the market for the price advertised. This seller, too, thought he had a gold mine. It was like pulling teeth talking him into a test drive. Whether I drove, or he did, it didn t matter to me. My brand new Mustang wasn t capable of towing anything more than bags of groceries, so I knew if I wanted the car, I was going to need to be able to drive it home. Finally, he agreed to start it up and take it out on the street. I pushed my luck and asked if I could drive, and boy will I never regret that ask. Shifting through the gears, whining out the engine, turning through his suburban streets and having the car go right where I pointed it, and stopping 30 feet after I actually wanted to I was hooked on this little 1962 Austin-Healey Sprite. Who knew what else was wrong with it mechanically, but I knew I could drive it home probably not very safely, but that was all part of the adventure. I bought the Sprite that evening, with all that it came with. After a few months of ownership, the gears complained more, bleeding the brakes didn t improve my ability to stop, and the wiring diagram made less sense the more I studied it. So I took the Sprite to a professional. Meeting the shop s owner, I shared what I envisioned for my Sprite: fix the transmission, address the brakes, and clean up the wiring. Anything else that might be wrong with the car, I wasn t aware of, so we settled on a timeline and a price. I d check in to see the progress. I was anxious to get this car back on the road. I waited weeks, then months, then more than a year. Everything was pulled from the car except the rear end, but it wasn t in the shop anymore. It was sitting outside with a worn tarp over it. There wasn t any momentum. So I spoke with my girlfriend s dad and we made a decision to rent a U-Haul and tow the Sprite to a storage unit close to where I lived. And he offered to help me out, too. The storage unit was going to be the repair shop. We were going to finish this car together. We started that same day by attacking the wiring. That was a challenge on many levels. There was a

17 lot of looking at the wires, then looking at the book trying to understand the patterns of where certain colors went, wondering if we even had a full harness. I don t have the best vision and my girlfriend s dad is colored blind, so it was the blind leading the blind. After a couple exciting and frustrating months, we got the wiring for the car all dialed in, and during that time I became friends, not only with the wiring diagram, but also with my girlfriend s father. Spending hours together it became apparent how eerily similar we both were. I was not only extremely appreciative of his willingness to dedicate his weekends to helping me, but it was also really enjoyable getting to know the guy. After the wiring we began tightening up the suspension and working on the brakes. There weren t any problems with the engine prior to dropping off the car, so we gambled and set it aside. We thought about rebuilding the transmission, but ended up finding a sweet deal from a fellow on the East coast. We rebuilt the SU carbs, replaced the nautical carpet, found a local windshield shop for new glass, and tackled all those other little items that always take twice the amount of time you think they will. In the free hours between a busy life, a year and six months later, we started to see a car. And by this time my girlfriend and I moved into a tiny little house with a garage, so the Sprite had a dedicated space. No longer were we driving to a storage unit on the weekends and working half out of it. I rented an engine crane, we dropped in the transmission and engine, wrapped up a couple engine bay needs, and began trying to fire it up. We still didn t know if anything might have happened to the engine between when I dropped of the car and now, but after a couple tinkers and adjusting the fuel line so the gas was actually going toward the engine, the Sprite fired right up and was running on all four cylinders. I have the videos of the first time starting it, driving it up and down the alleyway, and of us constantly switching seats so we both could drive. I knew virtually nothing about wrenching, but now I have a solid foundation that was created out of the kindness of my now father-in-law. He took a frustrating experience and created one of the most memorable ones. Restoring my Sprite with him was the best thing I could have done. No amount of money could ever buy those experiences and for that, in a weird turn of events, I now have one of the best relationships with my father-in-law. Coming from a home where I never met my dad, I was finally able to experience a father/son project and relationship 28 years later. MM

18 I saw my first British car when I was just a small boy living in Charleston, South Carolina. It was an Empire green 1953 Morris Minor that lived across the street from my house. Something clicked and the British car became a lifelong interest, or maybe even an obsession. Fast forward to leaving the US Navy as an officer serving on a replenishment ship in the Gulf of Tonkin I was looking for a new, hopefully lifetime, career. I was driven to find something related to the British car world. I wanted to go into the industry but remain in the San Francisco Bay area. As luck would have it, there was a zone office of British Leyland Motors, known as Leyland Motor Sales based in the small suburb of Brisbane, California, not all that far from where I was then living. So I began to stop in and ask about a job there, any job. Once I could get beyond the attractive but snippy young receptionist and have a conversation with the operation s accountant who obligingly came out from the back room to greet me, I could express to him my fervent desire to work there. I always referred to the latest Wall Street Journal article about the rocky times that British Leyland was going through but wished them the best. Bear in mind this was 1975, about the time that the British government was about to rescue 16 Moss Motoring BL from financial ruin with the loss of hundreds of thousands of workers in the UK. I made this sojourn to the Leyland Motor Sales offices about every six weeks to reinforce my job seeking wishes with the office accountant, Gregory Datig, who got to know me after a while and was never reluctant to chat with me for a few minutes. He was a former Triumph fellow having started with a Triumph distributor in Finally, after a number of months of visits, my persistence paid off and I got a phone call that the Zone Manager and Zone Service Manager wanted me to come in for an interview. I jumped at this invitation and arrived at the appointed time for the interview, which was, as I recall, perfunctory. I did not even have a resume but talked a good story, demonstrated my knowledge of the BL products and the corporate structure and situation all the way back to the UK, based on my WSJ knowledge. Maybe arriving in an Austin America solidified my company dedication. It seemed from the interview that there was a huge backlog of warranty claims from the dealers in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. I was to be hired to process warranty claims and reduce the backlog, which the retailers were complaining about as they were not getting reimbursed for their warranty work. Since I did know all the BL product line which comprised the Jaguar XJ6 and XJ12, E type V12, the Triumph Stag, TR6, Spitfire, GT6, MG Midget, MGB, Land Rover 88, Austin Marina and I knew the difference between a Borg Warner Model 12 gearbox and an SU carburetor or a Smiths speedometer, I was qualified for the position of warranty claims assessor. Soon it got down to what salary would I require. Being intent on getting in the door and not wanting to over price myself, I said, $165 a week would be acceptable. The Zone Manager s immediate response was: "Oh no, we could not pay you that, it would have to be $195 a week" which resulted in no objection from me. So, I was in. A dream come true. I really do not know how they got me on the payroll as the company all the way back to the UK was in dire straits and about to be taken over by the UK government, or go bankrupt. Surely there must have been a hiring freeze? On the morning of April 7, 1975, I walked in wearing my professional looking coat and tie and was shown to a back room in the building where there was one older gentleman a very long-time employee who was processing claims, slowly. But all around the perimeter of the room were Wrigley

19 spearmint gum cardboard boxes filled with unprocessed claim forms received by date. There must have been thousands of them! Understand, this era was the absolute nadir of British Leyland product quality. If anything could go wrong, it did. From faulty assembly, to bad quality components from the likes of Lucas, Smiths, Clearhooter, BorgWarner, Girling, Stromberg you name it, it was likely to be a failure waiting to happen. Customers were irate; dealers struggled to repair cars, often only to have the same replacement component fail yet again! And to top it off, the distributor was more than slow in paying the claims. In this era, these cars only had a 12-month, 12,000-mile factory warranty, but that was enough to generate massive numbers of claims. And BL UK was blindsided by the recent Federal adoption of a 5-year, 50,000-mile emissions warranty on everything from catalytic converters to Lucas electronic ignition systems, which furthered the tidal wave of claims. Remember those potted Lucas electronic ignition modules that bolted to the side of the distributors? And they were fit to every car post 1975! Every typed claim had just one fault per form, which was in triplicate, had to be "coded" with a fault code corresponding to the failure, the model code entered, the labor claim verified, the sale date of the car verified, and any sublet work documented with an attached bill. I was provided with a set of factory labor time guides for all the models of the cars that could conceivably still have warranty coverage, a fault code book, a desk, chair and boxes of claims. The older gentleman in the back room gave me some rudimentary training and set me free to whittle away at the mound of backlogged claim forms. He knew his work well but was more than slow. He was also tasked with checking in all the proprietary parts (Smiths instruments, Lucas items), which had to be received from the dealers and ultimately sent to Smiths or Lucas for their confirmation of the failure which, if verified, resulted in some financial reimbursement to BL. But they had an amazing ability to declare it "no fault found." The process was: once the claim document was coded, it went to a key punch operator who punched in the information whereupon the mainframe computer in our headquarters in Leonia, New Jersey, generated a dollar value and posted this to the dealer s account. Once the New Jersey headquarters became aware that the Northwest Zone had a new claims assessor they sent the National Warranty Manager, Bill Greehey out to fine-tune my somewhat lacking training in this coding process. I was working on building a good reputation and worked as expeditiously as possible. I often took a bulging briefcase of claims home to MossMotoring.com 17

20 process on the dining room table, but it was a never-ending treadmill. The same defects repeated themselves year after year as there was seemingly no effort to address the chronic issues. The sports cars kept selling as there was always a new crop of young buyers, ignorant of the quality issues but still wanting a fun car, and we had quite a variety and price range. As sales continued, so did the lag in warranty claims, and my job security. One memorable issue that stuck with me was with the MGB. The armrest had a peg attached to the bottom and a latching clip in the plastic console base. The armrest hinge was a bit flexible, so it was easy to push (slam) it down off-center to the latching clip. This resulted in the clip breaking the plastic console and the clip falling into the area below. The warranty repair was to change the entire console which entailed removal of the radio, all rather time consuming at ever-rising dealer labor rates. These failures went on for years, and I saw way too many claims on them. We had a document called a Product Quality Report (PQR) in which our company service staff, or the dealers, could report to us an issue and even propose a solution. Being an employee who desperately wanted to see fewer warranty repairs and more satisfied customers (and company survival), I took it upon myself to complete a PQR on this. My solution for the factory was to eliminate the latch entirely and replace it with a square of Velcro that would serve to hold the armrest down without rattling or moving. I wrote this up, annotated the amazing frequency of claims on this, and submitted it to my then boss the Zone Service Manager, a very old-school Englishman who was likely more than twice my age and never could really relate to an earnest "young buck" like myself. I presented this PQR to him in the middle of the central office. To my horror and disappointment, he read it over, and simply tossed it into the nearest wastebasket, apparently believing it was likely nothing would ever be done and it was hopeless. From that point forward I knew the future of the sports car was doomed. In the US the sports cars did go away around 1980, and we downsized to just the more profitable Jaguars, going from some 50,000 units sold a year to about That entailed substantial layoffs, but since warranty claims always lagged sales, I survived in my position, which gradually morphed into a more outwardly facing role with the retailers in warranty administration and training. Along about 1980, with the shrinking of the US business, British Leyland USA bought all the independent regional distribution operations. That resulted in my office more than doubling its territory to include Southern California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and as far east as El Paso. In the later part of my career I think I visited every Jaguar and Land Rover dealer from Chicago to New Orleans to San Diego to Honolulu to Anchorage for training and business consulting work. And some of those visits are a tale of their own. So to make a long story short, as Western Region Warranty Manager of Jaguar Land Rover North America, I survived 32 years in the industry, retiring in February 2007 as our then owner, Ford Motor Company, was on the ropes and downsizing for survival. I came in to a company on the ropes and left with a company on the ropes! MM As to owning classic British cars, I have six and there is a story behind each and every one. The Morris convertible was bought by my father in June of 1960, and the 3.8S Jaguar bought by my mother in All are up and in operation and in regular use here in Eugene, Oregon.

21 By Dennis Wheeler In 1969, I was 15. I had run the typical teenage gamut of go-carts, small Honda motorcycles and doin wheelies with our MTD lawn tractor. A few of us hung out on Detroit s Woodward Avenue observing the street machines often racing on cool Friday nights. My uncle Glenn would stop by our home every so often to show off his Austin-Healey 3000, or his Bugeye Sprite, and once he showed up in his Silver Cloud 63 Buick Riviera. Gorgeous. Uncle Glenn was convinced that British Sports cars were, "Magnets for Ladies." Hmmm. One weekend, Dad and I assisted Glenn with dragging home a burned out 68 E-Type Roadster and what was left of the pewter paint and black leather was quite intriguing to me. I loved the loooong hood. He corrected me: "bonnet." With help, he stripped and resurrected the car in his tiny Nine Mile Road home garage. He bought new panels from, I think it was called, Falvey Motorcars in Detroit. On occasion, I would go with him to pick up parts. Probably a year or more later, he drove that car to our house and I must say, I was dumbfounded by the sexiness and sound of the 4.2 litre six cylinder with dual resonators and brilliant, hand polished chrome wire wheels. Yeeahh buddy. I knew then the E-Type Jag was, and would always be, the sexiest British Sports Car ever produced ever. While my high school friends were tearing up the local streets driving 390-powered Ford Comets and 426 Hemi Road Runners, 273 Darts, 454 SS Chevelles, 442s... I had a different experience. Dad told me I was privileged to drive Mom s 1964 four door, four cylinder, Chevy II Nova. It didn t have enough oomph to spin the tires, even on gravel. It was pitiful. One cool, bright and early August morning in 1969, Glenn picked up Dad and I, and we drove to an insurance salvage lot somewhere near Hamtramck, ie: Detroit. We had to pay $2 at the gate to get registered because this was a "sealed bid type auction." There were tons of almost new vehicles with lots of damage. I sat in a Tri Power C2 Vette where the front half from the doors forward was unscathed, but the rear quarter was non existent, ripped apart behind the seats. Also saw a burned out yellow Nova with some guy named Baldwin decaled on the side. Mustangs, Chevelles, Road Runners, Cudas, GTX, a newappearing 67 XR7 390 Dan Gurney Special Cougar and on and on. Fields of wrecked cars that, insurance companies felt were rebuildable and offered them for pennies on the dollar with title papers. Not just undesirable salvage titles, no, but authentic, actual, real, MossMotoring.com 19

22 clean automotive titles. Of course before you would register them as roadworthy cars, auction paperwork explained you had to go through a stringent, successful state automotive inspection process first. While stumbling over bent fenders, twisted doors, wheels and tires, my Dad hollered for me, but he was way off somewhere I could not see him. But for whatever reason, he continued calling out to me. I wandered my way thru busted glass, oil, mud, the smell of leaking fuel, and around perhaps 20 damaged cars I really wanted to have. Finally I saw Dad s hat up above a folded down black soft top of a red E-Type Jag. Chrome wire wheels. Black English leather interior. Hmmm. The bonnet was crunched. The rear was pushed up and pinched the trunk lid. Although the taillights were not broken, the damages still looked pretty bad to me. But not to Uncle Glenn. He, Dad and I crawled all over this car. The keys were in it, so as I was peering under the half broken off bonnet looking at the weird triangular shaped air cleaner can attached to three strange carbs, Glenn turned the key, hit the starter button and VAROOM the Jag came to life! Because the exhaust was broken off at the manifolds, it was very loud, in fact so loud I jumped up and clobbered my head on the corner of the open bonnet. Through the pain I watched as Glenn 20 Moss Motoring drove the car forward and backward a few times in its very small space. So the clutch worked, the car rolled, and in my mind this 67 E-Type called out to me. After much discussion, I was asked if I wanted to put in a bid. The only problem was, the bid had to come from my savings account. It was after all potentially going to be my car. I caddied at local county clubs during the summers and had $ to my name. That was every penny. That was all I could bid. Dad told me if I won the auction, he would match the $ to buy parts to fix the car. I filled out all the required paperwork, slipped it into an envelope and handed it to the attendant where he dropped it into a locked box. Months later, I think around November 1969, I received a letter stating I was indeed the new owner of a 1967 E-Type Jaguar and I had just ten days to retrieve the car from the lot. We paid a towing company to deliver the Jag, and when the flat bed truck backed in the driveway, I remember my mother s look of shock, she could barely get the words out of her mouth as she shook her head in wonderment: "You spent every cent of your hard earned money for this?!!" Yeah, it was a mangled mess. Still, I was overly ecstatic. For the next 10 months, Dad and I rebuilt that car in our garage. Almost every night I would work on it till way late. My supper was always cold, sitting on a plate on the dining table all by itself. If my grades slipped, Dad promised to lock the garage until the next grading period. I struggled to keep that from happening. I learned bodywork, dollies, hammers, fillers, and how hydraulics could straighten anything. We painted the entire car with an old Craftsman 1HP compressor and a crusty old DeVilbiss JGA 502 siphon type gun that would not fan out properly. I applied what ended up a very flat lacquer finish. I had painted motorcycle gas tanks and side covers but this was my very first attempt to paint an entire car. I think I used a gallon of R&M Red. Applied many coats and wet-sanded 400 by hand in between each coat. Then topped it off with several coats of clear. It took four days to paint this thing and get it to where Uncle Glenn would approve the final finish. A year after the Jag arrived in pieces in our driveway, and after working through hours and hours and hours of trials and tribulations, I was invited to the Michigan Jaguar Club event at Botsford Inn on Grand River Avenue in Detroit. I believe my car was the only red E-Type in the lot. It sure looked right at home with all the other Jaguars. There was one fellow in particular who stood around my car for quite a while and gawked with his buddies. He eventually looked at me asking who owned it? Proudly of course I said, "I do." "Naah " he said with a grin, "I mean who owns this Jag, really?" Dad pointed to me and said, "Yes, my son owns it." The fellow began to inquire about its history. Where did I buy it? How long did I own it? Who did the repair work? "Wait, what?" I asked. "How did you know it was repaired?" Almost offended, my comment was: "Guess my restoration handiwork must ve really been that obvious."

23 "Umm, Nope. That s not it," the gent said. Then he began to tell us how he had bid on this car at an auction in August last year and lost the bid. He didn t know what happened to the car after that, and he was quite curious about details of the auction. He told my Dad, Glenn and I that he really thought he had made the highest bid. Glenn asked what his bid was? The gentleman replied: $1125. Holy Smokes! I explained about how I had bid every red cent I had to my name. He couldn t believe my story. He was actually aghast. Yes, I had won the auction bid on this 1967 E-Type Jaguar by a mere dollar fifty. $1.50!!! We moved to Florida in 1971 with me driving the Jag all the way. No issues. In very little time I learned this red and black leather E-Type was definitely the "Chick Magnet" Uncle Glenn said it was. I have owned several E-Types over the years but this one was extra special to me. It s the one that got away when I had to sell it to fund other business objectives. Would certainly love to locate this Jag one day and buy it back. MM Decades of car stories crowd Dennis memories like dusty boxes. We hope to open up more of them in future issues. MossMotoring.com 21

24 By Rob Corn We all do things that make our lives more complicated. Life is difficult enough without expensive, time-consuming projects that raise the blood pressure and yet, here I go again. For the tenth time in my life, I bought another sports car from the country of England. I stepped into that long line of non-mechanically-minded idiots who feel as if they can restore a 50-year-old car armed with a shop manual and hours of YouTube videos. I truly believe that the experience is going to be one of sweet enjoyment (dare I say bliss?), shushing the little voice in 22 Moss Motoring the back of my head telling me I should know better. The truth is, there is something intoxicating about the smell of oil and leather, and the occasional wire smoke that takes me back to an earlier time and place. For me, it started late one evening in 1969 when a friend drove up in his well used British Racing Green TR3 and offered me a ride. It was a life changing experience for a seventeenyear-old who had learned to drive in a Rambler station wagon. Speeding down a small two-lane road with the top down, four gears to choose from, and the glorious feeling of flying; I knew I had found one of the loves of my life. In the following 50 years, I owned, or was owned by, several MGB GTs, a TR3, a Bugeye Sprite, and a Jaguar XKE. There was the occasional dalliance when I would leave the land of my forefathers and try out a Volvo P1800, or some other more reliable sports car, but they never offered the sense of expectation of what might happen when you turned the key. At the ripe age of 68, I heard the siren s call again. Forgetting all that I know to be true, I believe this time will be different.

25 The Enabler One of my dearest friends, and a lover of all cars made in Germany, always found my love of British cars amusing, and he was more than happy to help me find another product from Morris Garages. He not only found the car for me, he also spotted me the money so it wouldn t get away. He even took it to his friend s garage to have the car "gone-through." And, as if that wasn t enough, he trailered the car for six hours across the state of Tennessee to give me a fighting chance of getting it home. We met at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Johnson City. Keys, hugs, and memories were exchanged. I had not seen Fred in several years even though we chat on the phone quite often. We had plenty to talk about, but I was standing there with the keys in my hand and all I could think about was putting them to good use. This is the beauty of a life-long friendship. Fred knew there would be time to catch up later. He was not going to torture me. I jumped in the driver s seat only to feel that last remaining life escape from the foam and webbing of the fifty-year-old seat. I was unfazed and not discouraged because I now owned my first MGB roadster. For an old guy, I was giddy. I turned the key and the car fired up instantly. The old Brit ran as smoothly as any car I had ever owned. I headed up the mountains into North Carolina on tires that were slinging chunks of dry rotted rubber, but I didn t care. It was spectacular. This 1970 MGB, in British Racing Green, was running strong and cool even as I headed up the mountains towards home to start life with the last MG I would ever own. Having bought the car sight unseen, this was my first real opportunity to take stock of my new toy; I was impressed. There was very little rust. Nothing more than just a pinhole here and there. The paint, while not perfect, was very serviceable and a good "ten footer" as they say. The first afternoon was spent cleaning and knocking off at least fifteen years of dust, dirt, and grease that had accumulated. Somewhere in the neighborhood of the distributor, a mouse had met his demise many years before, and with little ceremony and rubber gloves, the carcass was removed. The fact remained that while the car looked good, the tires, which had gifted me a safe trip up the mountain, could offer me nothing more than one last trip to the tire store. Since I had no spare tire, jack, or lug wrench, new rubber would be the first order of business. Triumphant Arrival The next morning, I woke up with the anticipation of traveling the ribbons of asphalt draped across the North Carolina mountains. Pointing the car northward towards the small town of Newland, the wind blew unimpeded through the same area that my ponytail had occupied fifty years ago. The mountains played along with my fantasy and provided me with a beautiful day with marshmallow clouds and an azure sky. With the undoing of two clasps and a single graceful movement, the top came down exposing me to the sky. I was the master of my universe. MossMotoring.com 23

26 I pulled into the local tire shop around 9:30am to the expected adulation of the small crowd of onlookers. I was acknowledged as the owner of something quite special as I walked into the office and announced I had arrived for my tire appointment and for a brief moment in time, I was the big fish in a small pond. A mere two hours later, I had four new tires and even a new spare. I am not sure that I have ever owned a brandnew spare tire, but this was a special day and a special car. I cranked it up and pointed the little MG southward. [Note of Caution: If you are a new MG owner, you may not want to read what follows.] There was coughing, sputtering, and a stubborn refusal to ignite gas from the carburetors. I ended up stalled in the middle of the intersection at the one traffic light in town. This was not the exposure I was looking for as the local police showed up. I sat there with a temporary tag, no proof of insurance or a copy of my registration. My moment in the spotlight was starting to burn. The trip home would be on the back of a AAA tow truck with substantially less fanfare than when I had arrived. The Search I spent the evening convincing myself that there were no major problems with the car. There must be some simple solution. I optimistically approached the car the next morning with a plan of working through the ignition system. In a scientific and systematic approach, I would identify, and then eliminate the problem. The 1798cc engine used by MG in 1970 was a pretty basic affair. Like all combustion engines, all it needed was gas, air, and spark. How hard could it be? I would ensure the carburetors were getting gas, then see that the carburetors were "breathing" correctly, and finally make sure that the spark plugs fired when the distributor told them to. Easy right? Several hours later the only thing I knew for sure was that not everything in life is simple. I have a friend in town with a beautiful TR250. We had traveled far enough down the road to friendship that I had no hesitation in calling him to pick his brain. Three days later, we had swapped out the coil three times and changed the wiring countless number of times (Mechanic s Note: There are only three wires, so the possibilities are not endless), but he was convinced that the problem lay with the coil and the message it should be sending to the spark plugs. We had a moment of excitement as the engine started, only to die when we asked any more of it than just idling. So, we swapped the wires from one terminal to the next in a mindnumbing circle. And then my luck changed for the worse. I woke up Saturday morning with a full-blown kidney stone attack. While the pain was excruciating, I can attest the kidney stones did not hurt as much as getting a shock into my hand from the coil. I had surgery on Tuesday. Due to poor physiological planning on my body s part, and a previous commitment, that same week we headed out to visit our son in Alabama and our daughter in Texas (a mere 32- hour trip). I had to pee every 15 minutes due to the surgery and a strategically placed stent, so the trip took twice as long as it should have. However, this did give me time to daydream about being behind the wheel of my dream car and conquering any curve the Blue Ridge Mountains could put in my way. After ten days of time with family, and stopping at every gas station in the Southeastern United States, we returned to the reality that we had a piece of yard art that refused to move under its own power. On the plus side, there were boxes stacked on the front porch full of English car parts. Within these boxes lay the answer to the puzzle I had been working on for weeks now. I just didn t know which box. It was time to bring this British time machine back to life. I had countless hours over the last ten days to rethink my approach to the resurrection of lovely "Rita" as Marcee, my wife, had now named the car and give it the road-worthiness it deserves. MM (To be continued...) 24 Moss Motoring

27 Limited Edition E-Type 60 TH Anniversary Print Celebrating 60 years Excellence $ TH E-Type Polo Shirt Description Part # S M L $ Description Part # XL XL Description Part # Roadster Coupe Verona archival, acid-free paper Naturally pigmented, environmentally safe ink 22" x 16" including ½" mounting edge Limited Edition of 60 per print Signed by artist David Townsend, numbered, & accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity 60 TH E-Type Hat $ E-Type 60 TH Sticker Description Part # Price 4" Standard Sticker $3.99 4" Double Sided Window Sticker " Standard Sticker TH E-Type Umbrella $ E-Type 60 TH Anniversary Coin $ $ E-Type 60 TH Ornament & Pin Description Part # $ " Pin Suncatcher E-Type 60 TH Signs Description Part # 12" x 16" Sign " Round Sign All E-Type 60th Anniversary items online at: MossMotors.com/E-Type60th

28 Moss Motors, Ltd. 440 Rutherford Street Goleta, CA Moss is Working for You We completely understand how and why a restoration can take years to complete. But at Moss we aim to be the reason your car project gets done faster and with the best results. It s our job to have the quality parts you need in stock, package them up securely, and get them shipped that same day if you order before 3pm. We have knowledgeable salespeople for any questions you may have. We now offer a Quick Order Desk, for customers who know exactly what parts they want. Whether you order online or on the phone, our Quick Order option means less time waiting and more time to spend on your car. MossMotors.com/QuickOrder or "Press 1" when calling