I have never been a concours judge or entered such a competition but perhaps someone can help me here. If that car was presented and a knowledgeable judge observed the four obvious ‘defects’ of spinners, rear view mirror, bottle caps and bumper rubbers what would the car have scored? In other words how many points would have been deducted from its 100 point perfection?
I don’t think that’s true. It implies the car is never drive or used in any manner. And, “essentially” any 100 point car can’t go a hundred miles without breaking down.
LLoyd
(oh, mine is pretty consistent inthe 9.97x range, and some of that is dirt)
Wherever space and time interact, there is information, and wherever information can be ordered into knowledge, and knowledge can be applied, there is intelligence.
Pavel Mirsky, mid 21st Century Russian General
Interesting that is has a J62 tag. I guess that makes sense because it has a dispatch date of Sept 20, '61. Mine is like mid Oct 63 and is a J64 car, titled as a '64. But as early as this car is in the series it makes me wonder whether many 61s were actually titled as such?
Nice that they kept the original data plate on it.
The J tag is a California-only thing. They were applied, presumably by the importer or dealer, when the car was first registered with the California DMV, typically upon first sale. It has no connection whatsoever to the “model year” or build date of the car. It is not at all unusual for the car to be built one year, and have the J tag from the following year. It all depends on how long it sat on the dealers lot.
Regards,
Ray L.
In that case Ray, shouldn’t the car be marked down because someone has added this “J tag” after the car left the factory, i.e. it isn’t “original” in this context.
Also, I’m guessing that the car is painted in oh-so genuine 1961 2pack paint, which has a totally different reflective finish to the enamel paint used by the factory. The paintwork will thus have a stippled finish, rather than an even, flat reflective finish.
kind regards
Marek
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I’ll bring my laser over some day…
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Hi David I’m currently just heading out the door for the day so I can’t work this out right now. You may find the JCNA rule book interesting. It’s at : https://www.jcna.com/concours
Look at Chapter VI - Rules for judging authenticity. There are tables specifying point deductions for authenticity items, listed under engine, exterior, and interior. Deductions for a non authentic item are mandatory. The car starts with 1000 points and deductions are made from that. That result is divided by 10 for the final score. Because it’s a deduction system the car never has to be better than a car was as it came from the factory.
Looks like it has a similar gigantic radiator like Tweety had.
I attended a JCNA sanctioned concours a week ago at which there was a stunning 1949 Mark V. I asked the owner if he’d considered installing seat belts and he informed me that he had not for two reasons, 1) they would trigger a “non-authentic” points penalty as the car would no longer be “as delivered” (I had thought JCNA judging had waived such things, but what do I know?) and 2) he has no intention of actually driving the car so who needs seat belts?
I don’t get it.
I have been to several auctions in Monterey as a spectator over the years. One time I was at RM where a C-type sold for several million $$. A few cars later a car that I cannot remember now came across the block. Bidding stalled and I mentioned to my buddy…“that seems low for that car”…with no real idea if it was low or not. I just liked the way it looked. There were two couples right in front of us with drinks and having a good time. Right after my comment one of the wives (or girlfriends) raised her hand even though none of them had bid on anything before. One of the men leaned forward and gave her a dirty look but did not protest further. She was the high bidder. The two women had been talking and I did not think were paying much attention to the auction.
The high end auctions in Monterey might be the best for a seller if you can get in at the right time. Lots of $$ and impulsive egos out there this time of year.
David
68 E-type FHC
On both points… neither do I.
One seems to beget the other…
But, you don’t know the ones you don’t see that have $$. The impulsive ego is probably well established before the $$.
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‘Not getting’ a minority activity always puts you in the majority. Nothing remarkable there. I’m more or less in the same boat.
Nor is there anything remarkable in how venal human nature naturally seeks to put one over on others in any competitive activity, especially where money is involved.
JCNA actually started out in the early Fifties as a bunch of XK owners wanting to stretch their car’s legs in competitive driving events. I suspect everyone here would ‘get’ that, and as in most types of driving event the stopwatch rarely lies. “When the flag drops, the BS stops.”
But then as numbers increased and non-XK owners got involved, it became obvious that to have any chance of doing well, non-XK owners needed a different type of event. So they decided to clean their cars and award prizes for general condition and the meetings began to include more driving/social events.
You won’t be surprised to hear that there was gamesmanship even in the early years, so a few basic rules were developed to try and give everyone a fair chance against similar cars. The first rule book was barely more than a pocket leaflet and would fit in a trouser pocket. Today’s rule book is huge by comparison, but this is not because some power-mad clique in an ivory tower is constantly looking for ways to be more and more exclusive. The vast majority, if not all, rule changes/additions were developed to close off some area of behavior (‘cheating’ is usually a bit strong) where entrants were judged by fellow competitors or officials to be not playing by the spirit of the rules.
One area dealt with in the last few years is shown in the Goodings ad, and Steve’s original post: namely citing JCNA concours results in adverts. This was getting out of hand and bogus claims were dragging JCNA’s name down. Letters were written to all reputable auction houses and the likes of Hemmings IIRC, asking them to check with JCNA before citing supposed JCNA.‘results’.quoted by sellers. This has largely worked and clearly even the imperfect JCNA system is sufficiently highly-regarded as to be worth citing to boost a car’s supposed price. Until someone invents a better and more transparent system, I guess it will stay that way. Caveat emptor!
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Not being a concours buff myself, I didn’t research the two specific claims the owner made to Nick and Nick relayed here, although the seat belt one didn’t sound defensible.
[EDIT premature ‘send]’…]
Turns out the owner, or theoretically Nick’s slice of the Chinese whisper, is indeed quite wrong. My money is on the owner being peed off and mis-remembering the reason. Reminds me of the 75%
who fail thee tough UK driving test first time and cite one of several minor fails but forget the biggie(s) that actually blew the outcome.
As you’d expect in litigious times, the JCNA rules allow for safety issues and seat belts would not be a deduction. Full stop, period, the end. One wonders where he got that from?
The other point about not driving and therefore not needing/wanting bets is his own call, of course, not a concours rules issue at all.
A few years ago, the point about judging variability (inescapable in any activity performed by humans, no matter how uniform the training), was addressed as far as possible by holding a single ‘top tier’ event every year to get the best judges in one place for judging the best cars. Steve, David and others can rest assured that when the E type in question was at the International Jaguar Festival it did not score 100. Nor did any others… A gold rosette at the local village show is a lovely way of supporting the parish poor relief, but won’t get you far in concours. There’s room for all tastes of course, thank goodness, including serious perfectionists and gimlet-eyed judges determined to deduct for any ‘faults’.
David - Without comment on the correctness of your view as to authenticity : the spinners are 2 points each for a total of 8 points, reservoirs are 2 points each for a total of 6, rear view mirror is 2 points, bumper rubber deduction is found in the common areas section and is .5 points each for 2 points total. If only these deductions were taken car’s score would be 1000 minus 18 or 98.2. I wouldn’t expect that all these issues would be picked up by most judges.
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Quite. Not getting isn’t dismissing. Whatever brings you joy in life that otherwise harms no-one - whatever floats your boat or mine, as it were - I’m completely cool with. I can’t imagine not driving my toys. I would have loved to have taken that pristine Mark V for a spin and, if it was mine, I’d drive it.
I suppose you could look up the owner’s name in the record for that particular concours and set him straight, though he was quite definitive in his interpretation of the rules.
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You are not alone in that club…
Marek,
In California, that tag is NOT optional - it is part of its VIN. Without it, the car cannot be registered.
Regards,
Ray L.
On a general concours judging point, I recall a conversation I had at the JDC’s annual E-Type concurs competition, held at Prescott Hill. The guest of honour up to this year when he was too ill to attend, was Norman Dewis. One car was being poured over by the club judges, with Norman looking on. The car was an early coupe which had been presented for judging by a well known motoring journalist and TV personality. After a few moments when the judges were criticising some aspect of the car’s trim Norman walked off and sat with some friends, silently fuming. I asked what had happened when this car was being judged. “They have no idea,” Norman said. “In those early days we were struggling to get cars out to fill the orders. If a part wasn’t available something else was found and made to fit so the car could be delivered.”
Make of concours judging what you will, since that brief encounter with Norman, I have been convinced that concours judging must be viewed as a subjective evaluation. Only when one car regularly wins high praise from many different judges, in many different competitions can that judgement become objective.
That said, most of the cars I have seen presented for judging have been stunning cars. I always look at them with the philosophy of Jay Leno echoing in my head, take a 100 point car and drive it until it is a 50 point car. If only I had millions to do this.
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