I didn’t know that about dealership panels. Makes sense. Somewhere in J-L over the twenty years I’ve been hanging around someone posted something similar about XK120 doors, to the effect they were sorted by width variation and the best ones that fit any particular car being assembled were selected accordingly. No two cars the same. XK120 doors are especially fun to fit.
But to followup on yesterday, today’s playtime involved contour gauging both sides and determining where the right side was fat. Much of it was excess body solder on the sides of the pod, some factory, some added by the previous guy. Filed/shaped off about 3# of the stuff, almost a quarter inch thickness reduction in places. Then shrunk the steel on both sides of the pod along with slapper/hammer & dolly to reduce its width and bring the crown up. Now nearly symmetrical to the point it’s hard to pick up with the eye. I noticed after taking this last video one spot that still needs some hammer and dolly work which I’ll take care of tomorrow but this pretty much wraps this little ditty up. Off to the shower and then dinner and a movie. Three Billboards.
Will answer this first. Yes indeed, Peter. It’s virtually impossible to hand build a symmetrical auto body, but it is possible to improve symmetry. I imagine when a particularly good build came together within what was considered an acceptable production time frame that the factory tradesmen took notice. They probably also took notice when the result of their efforts was more of a dog. What I’m doing is what the body men in the factory would have done had they the time I have.
When I took on the bodywork and paint—the FIRST car I ever did such on—of my rent’s ‘35 Auburn Speedster, it was astonishing to me, the sheer amount of asymmetry those bodies had.
They had a wee bit of an excuse: it was the depths of The Great Depression, Auburn was about to go bankrupt, and they only ever made 125 of them (‘35/‘36).
The rear fenders were made of six pieces, the fronts, 4.
The cowls were hand-modified standard Auburn ones, cut down to “speedster sized.” The body was quite different, side to side, and the “golf bag” door was not uniform in shape.
I learned a WHOOOOOLE lot about how to put on a gallon of Bondo, then sand off all but a pint!
Given the fairly crude standards of the time, in Britain, and with the frugality which was demanded of all who worked at Jaguar, I think they did a pretty bang-up job, slappin’ these things together.
Not in the least. I did that shit, for so long, so intensely, and in such volume, I can certainly appreciate the methods, the challenges, and in seeing others engage in it, it’s nice to share a ground-of-being with them.
Well, Phil, the roadster is easier to restore than the coupe, and nowhere near as difficult as the drophead. I might be tempted to do up another E-type, but it would be a coupe if so, or maybe a big Healey, though I think my wife might have an opinion on a few more years of sweeping up black dust in the house. The other problem is space, though a garage lift would help cure that.
Personally, I’d probably leave it. Mainly because you have pictures depicting of it previously. The likelihood of it leaving Jaguar that way is pretty good.
Not sure how they would judge this, though I’d be inclined to argue for your car with others.
Concours…is how it left the factory, NOT how the factory would have liked it to leave.
However you decide, it Yours. That being said…if Jaguar would like to correct it…?
There’s a number of ways to approach a total restoration but only one way to recognise one, and that is the end result will not be identical to the original car just as it left the factory. With modern paints, even if faithful to the original colour, it will look different, just as cadmium plating looks different from zinc though zinc in concours judging, like a base/clear paint job, gets a pass.
So, one way to approach a total restoration is to strive to make it as close to how it left the factory as possible - paint runs and sags on parts, slightly uneven panel gaps and elevations and notable side-to-side asymmetry included. That should surely garner the greater score in concours judging but the reality is if the restorer of the car parked next to it on the field has addressed normal showroom aesthetic deficiencies his entry will prevail because it will be the prettier car in the beauty contest. That, then, is another way to approach restoration, to stay true to the concept and design while optimising the aesthetic. It’s sort of like blueprinting mechanicals to tighter than factory tolerances. Yet another way is a variation on a resto-mod, which will not do well in judging but will be a higher quality car that may command as high or likely higher hammer price at auction than a faithful as-it-left-Brown’s-Lane restoration. Then there’s resto-customizing, the variation into which the majority of “restored” Jaguars fall (example, more than half of the post January 1967 production S1.25 E’s with photographs in XKEDATA feature covered headlights, as do about a quarter of all 1968 S1.5s.)
There’s no right or wrong way, only personal preferences. And detracting from a strict approach to originality may simply come down to who the restorer wants to please or who’s approval he seeks, his own or the cruise night lawyers’.
