This car has been the biggest nightmare I have ever been involved with and should really just be parted at this juncture.  In 1979, I had bought a 1957 Ford Convertible, which I had paid $450 for and was well on my way to having it restored when this thing arrived at Ed's Garage along with an Austin Princess.  Some guy in St Louis would just send these cars over to Ed from time to time unannounced and they had gotten progressively worse so Ed had his fill of it and told me to call the guy and offer him 900 bucks for it .  I did and was told "no way baby" so went back to Ed who said to tell the guy Ed said if he didn't sell me the car for 900 bucks he could come and get it and shove it you no where, oh and by the way please stop sending these project cars to Ed.  He agreed.  I then sold the Ford back to the guy I had bought it from for 1500 bucks and bought the Jag.  BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!

11/16/04-I was recently reminded why I hate this car so much.  Every time I took it anywhere to have any little thing done to it, I was told "oh that will be $1200."  This always was the estimate for everything.  Whether it be brakes, transmission, valve job, whatever.  Keep in mind this was in the early to mid 80's so $1200. was a bit more back then.  There are only a handful of shops in town that would even work on the car and this seemed to be their blanket charge for working on Jags.  I did pay quite a bit of money getting things done to it over the years.  John Mills was the mechanic for my Scorpion and I was needless to say a very good customer of his (they had nicknamed me "the pilot"  because I would typically come in and say things like "when you get above 85, there is a shimmy").  John agreed to get the motor rebuilt for a more reasonable rate but then died suddenly shoveling snow one winter and I got a call saying that this was the case and the shop was closing, so come and get your car.  They had already determined that the motor was shot needing a new crank and all.  When I got there they said "hey you can have this other Jag motor that someone else left here and we cant find him".  the car was then taken to another shop where John's son was going to be working.  A couple of months later John's son took his own life (hopefully not as a result of this project) and so I got that call from the owner saying "no problem we can finish the job...it will be $1200".  I said fine and then got a call some months later saying that the shop was closing, but car was almost ready to go, where should we tow it?  I gave them my address and wrote them a big check.  The next day when I returned from work the trunk of the car was open and all the top end engine parts had been removed (like who really needs these parts anyway?, the cops wouldn't even go over there and confront the guy, theft is allowed to run pretty much unchecked here in Indy).  I then took it to Victor LeRoy at Fast Imports who I had known for years due to the Standard ownership.  After some time I started applying pressure and sure enough they were able to get it running.  It cost, you guessed it, $1200.00. Shortly thereafter it became apparent that the transmission was also shot. Fast then went out of business so I was left to fend for myself on the tranny.  Victor did sell me the parts I needed somewhat cheaply. 

After a couple of more shops closing and/or me getting frustrated with lack of progress and retrieving it after months and/or years of it sitting outside, not to mention probably another $1200 bucks between those shops, it has gotten so bad rust wise that it is definitely at the bottom of my to do list, and like I said, should just be parted out. 

Back to why I was reminded of this-Recently I saw a 67 Jaguar Mark 2 in the Star.  I called and was told the guys son who had moved to Hawaii owned the car and he would be calling me.  The next day who should call but Victor LeRoy! He told me the car was at a shop and to go look at it.  After both of them saying it was mechanically great Victor finally admitted the brake booster was out so the car wasn't really very drivable.  I called the shop and arranged to go and see it and while I had the shop owner on the phone I asked.  "Gee Victor tells me the Brake booster is shot, what would you charge to remedy that?"  I leave you now to guess what the estimate was!

Some things never change I guess.