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On May 25th we moved car from Storage to the house in Wilmington for the eventual move to Florida. While the car was in Storage it was on a car trailer with a car cover installed. Occasionally, I would go over to the storage facility and check on the status of the car. At no point did I lift the cover over the left front fender. This was to prove to be a mistake. Because on the day we were being packed by the movers – we found that the left front fender had been damaged! See the photo below.

As you can see it appears that a truck backed into the car as the car was on a car trailer and the fender would have been slightly higher than waiste height. Fortunately, the delay in putting the car back together minimized the damage. Imagine of the headlamps and chrome surrounds had been in the car when hit! Yikes I shudder to imagine the replacement parts cost. Fortunately, the parts weren’t damaged and the car will ultimately head to the body shop for a repair.

The Jaguar 340 that I am restoring was purchased from a mechanic in Maryland in 1998. Per the mechanic – 10 years previously a customer had dropped the car off for some bodywork and subsequently never came back for it. The mechanic filed a mechanics lien and the car became his property. He proceeded to work on the body off and on for the next 10 years and finally sold it for cash.

I remember driving out to some barn in the wilds of Maryland to pick up the car with a friend of mine. The car was in grey primer, the bumbers were no longer chrome and a pile of parts were in the car. The speedometer showed 29K miles and the engine was original and had never been out of the car!

We loaded it up on the trailer and hauled it back to Virginia where it was destined to sit for a number of years in different garages, counties and even different states. Today it sits in Winter Park, Florida where on the weekends I attempt to put the car back together. I was holding off on rebuilding the car until I could restore it completely – but decided in the end that the car deserved a better fate than being labeled as another “restoration project” or “project car”. It’s getting old belonging to the local Jaguar Car clubs and not being able to drive to one in a Jaguar!

So join me as we start the process of putting the 340 back together and hopefully being able to drive it one day to a show.