Had a '60 XK-150 and a '63 XKE. Ordered the XK while in
Iceland. They didn't have any car dealerships there at the time, so, one
went to a store and ordered one from a book. Got it $400 cheaper than had
I Ordered it from Coventry. It was delivered to Momo's in NYC. Three
weeks before I was to fly back to the US, the Cuban Missile Crisis hit.
After 2 weeks of sitting alert in a T-33 (with orders to ram) I was ordered to
proceed immediately to my new assignment at Hamilton AFB in the Bay area with no
leave allowed. As I was processing out I was wondering what the hell to do
about my car an old NCO saved my ass by informing me that I still got 15 days
travel time. When I finally showed up at Momos it was Where in the
Hell have you been? I implied we were in a National Crisis, they said
(being Ferrari Guys) here take this piece of s*** and get out of here no
charge! I drove straight though to Chicago and stayed with friends for a
night and then straight through to Hamilton. Everybody there had been on
Nuke alert (32 aircraft on 15 min alert loaded with MB-1s) So, here I
came rolling in in my new Jag! In unison my Squadron CC and Wing CC said
Where in the Hell have you been?? I tried to explain myself to not much
avail. They said, well, then get your ass on alert. After several
yess sirs, the Ops Officer said that we have to give him one ride in the F-101B
to get him current and to do so we will have to download the Nukes on one
aircraft. After that sunk in, things got a little tense. My Wing CC
had to go to the Division CC to go to CINC NORAD to get permission to take a
bird off alert and down load the Nukes. This all had to be explained to
the CINC and of course the CINC asked Where in the world has he been!
Rarely does a new Captain get that kind of visibility. So, I took off on a
beautiful day in the Bay area and was about the only aircraft in the sky.
For the next few years, every time I came across some of these Senior Officers,
they would look at me and say "oh yea, you are the one with the
Jag!!!
I drove it for 3 years in beautiful Northern California and
then sold it to a Grad Student at Stanford for 2k more than I paid for it.
So, that's my Jag story!
Luke
Agree,
9600HP and 77RW were both hard-working demonstrators and are still in the
possession of Jaguar (or Jaguar-Daimler Heritage Trust??).
gp
From: BRITT ROTHMAN <britt2asa [at] aol.com>
Those
Jags were probably preproduction cars that were for show only. The majority of
the first 4 months of E Type production went to the USA to raise hard cash for
the British economy. At that time it was ?export or die? due to currency
requirements after the war. British consumers didn?t have the opportunity to buy
an e type for quite a long time.
As a note: the E type was shown at the
Geneva Show in March ?61 for the first time and then showed up in S Cali
shortly afterwards.
Anyway I am certain those first cars would have been
rushed out as prototypes, Jag would have built 30 to 40 cars to finalise the
production process. They wouldn?t be sold but would be good enough for test
drives and display.
BR in Stockholm.
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