[concours] How should I handle the earliest XKE differences for Concours?

Concours
1

I have convinced myself it’s time to do more restoration work on
my '61 outside latch convertible, and it’s a very early OBL. There
are so many differences to the later cars, things that I know are
correct as it left the factory, but they will raise the red flag to
a judge. Here are just a few of the things i’ll have to deal with:

The fiberglass heater air duct was painted on the car. It still has
the original car color on it, along with the connectors and
washers. (As an aside - under that original paint the fiberglass
was painted hammertone, not black.)

I have a box of NOS rear resonator connectors - the ones that
connect the 2 resonators by welding them together after they’re
chromed. Welding 2 freshly chromed resonators together won’t be
pretty, but it will be correct.

In '60 and into '62 the electrical Lucar connectors were black
plastic. I’ve not seen any show cars change to black and points
were not deducted, but the semi-clear is wrong for that time.

Here’s one unique to my car. The center gauge dash has the aluminum
dot pattern, but it’s covered with the same material as the 2 side
pieces. It’s the plastic vacuum formed covering found on other
early cars, but not in the center. Later the texture of the plastic
became more pronounced but essentially the same. I could take off
the plastic and have a perfect, untouched dot pattern dash, but the
covering is nice and i’d like to use it along with the sides.

Most of the early changes are covered in Haddock’s book - this car
was even a reference car in that book. I just don’t want to spend a
Sunday afternoon arguing with the judges over a dozen or 2 things
that they’ve not seen before. The bonnet hinges and bolt heads are
even painted. With the early front sub-frame, that shows the bonnet
was painted connected to the frame, not off the car.

A little guidance in dealing with the not usual, would be
appreciated. I do have photos of the tear down, but they’re old
photos and not very good. There are some photos of this car in
Haddock’s book - that’s a help. I have 2 other early cars and one
was used as a side-by-side model to build for show, but it wasn’t
known to Haddock.

Thanks,
Phil.–
PhilW
Virginville, Pa., United States
–Posted using Jag-lovers JagFORUM [forums.jag-lovers.org]–

2

Phil,
The body colored heater inlet as well as the black Lucar connectors
are both covered in the jCNA S1 E-Type judging guide. Congratulations
on owning one of the rarest of the E’s and out of curiosity how long
have you owned the car and,assuming that you are not the original
owner, do you have ant idea of the number of previous owners?
Bob
889076
Plymouth, Mi.On Mar 5, 2014, at 8:51 PM, PhilW wrote:

I have convinced myself it’s time to do more restoration work on
my '61 outside latch convertible, and it’s a very early OBL. There
are so many differences to the later cars, things that I know are
correct as it left the factory, but they will raise the red flag to
a judge. Here are just a few of the things i’ll have to deal with:

The fiberglass heater air duct was painted on the car. It still has
the original car color on it, along with the connectors and
washers. (As an aside - under that original paint the fiberglass
was painted hammertone, not black.)

I have a box of NOS rear resonator connectors - the ones that
connect the 2 resonators by welding them together after they’re
chromed. Welding 2 freshly chromed resonators together won’t be
pretty, but it will be correct.

In '60 and into '62 the electrical Lucar connectors were black
plastic. I’ve not seen any show cars change to black and points
were not deducted, but the semi-clear is wrong for that time.

Here’s one unique to my car. The center gauge dash has the aluminum
dot pattern, but it’s covered with the same material as the 2 side
pieces. It’s the plastic vacuum formed covering found on other
early cars, but not in the center. Later the texture of the plastic
became more pronounced but essentially the same. I could take off
the plastic and have a perfect, untouched dot pattern dash, but the
covering is nice and i’d like to use it along with the sides.

Most of the early changes are covered in Haddock’s book - this car
was even a reference car in that book. I just don’t want to spend a
Sunday afternoon arguing with the judges over a dozen or 2 things
that they’ve not seen before. The bonnet hinges and bolt heads are
even painted. With the early front sub-frame, that shows the bonnet
was painted connected to the frame, not off the car.

A little guidance in dealing with the not usual, would be
appreciated. I do have photos of the tear down, but they’re old
photos and not very good. There are some photos of this car in
Haddock’s book - that’s a help. I have 2 other early cars and one
was used as a side-by-side model to build for show, but it wasn’t
known to Haddock.

Thanks,
Phil.

PhilW
Virginville, Pa., United States
–Posted using Jag-lovers JagFORUM [forums.jag-lovers.org]–