Jaguar Journal March/April 2021

Fans of black and white movies, especially British films from the 1930s and 1940s, will probably recognize the above phrase as the stereotypical cry of a newspaper vendor on some street corner, or outside a busy station. Having pulled the camera back, there often followed an image of a spinning front page which quickly stopped to reveal a strident headline that advanced the plot by revealing some new twist or shock. Those were the days when papers were mostly printed and distributed at night for sale next morning, but dramatic news occasionally merited an extra print run to catch the evening rush hour. Hence the cry. MAKING JJ WORK FOR YOU These days, news cycles are measured in minutes and hours, not days or weeks. The Jaguar Journal has rarely…

During the two-day launch event for the F-Type coupe in Los Angeles a few years back, journalists were taken on an after-hours evening tour of the Petersen Museum’s private maintenance shop in the building’s basement. This was a kind of ‘Skunkworks’ facility, not open to regular visitors, where some of the world’s most valuable automobiles are maintained and repaired to keep them in tip-top condition. Since many of the exhibits are either very rare, or totally unique, looking after them is a bit more complex than grabbing a Haynes manual at your Friendly Local Auto Parts Store (FLAPS). At the Petersen, engineers and technicians at the top of their game work sometimes from first principles to devise fixes for ailments that may range from damaged wooden road wheels to obscure…

You won’t find the reference in many history or geography books, but there is one very clear advantage to living in a small country, where car enthusiasts are concerned. When nobody lives more than a long day’s drive from any circuit, and most live within a couple of hours at most, you are practically guaranteed to have a thriving competition scene. Most rural areas will have a few off-road tracks tucked away on large farms, or hillclimb tracks hidden on the estates of country mansions. But even the big high-profile infrastructure is not too difficult to book. National or local clubs have regular events and every so often a big sponsor steps in to take a championship series to the next level. In the UK, Motor Racing Legends was recently…

Jaguar fans concerned at the effect of COVID on the company’s situation can take solace from the fact they are still working for some good causes, in line with their aim to be good corporate citizens. At the end of last year they carried out their commitment to work with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to raise awareness of jaguar conservation. The Jaguar brand’s social channels promoted the WCS conservation work to its followers for International Jaguar Day and for Giving Tuesday – Dec. 1, 2020. International Jaguar Day, marked each year on November 29, recognizes the magnificence of the jaguar and the need to protect it from extinction. Sir William Lyons, the co-founder of Jaguar Cars, once said, “The car is the closest thing we will ever create to…

Just when I thought I would be in total lockdown for the foreseeable future with the COVID-19 pandemic raging, I received a call from George Camp about another donation to the Coventry Foundation. George had just talked with his friend Ed Miller, who lives in the Hudson Valley and is a longtime Jaguar expert. As most of you will remember, Ed’s wife Karen was a notable Jaguar archivist, very active and well known within JCNA, and the Jaguar community at large. Karen died way too young, and Ed has continued to work on cars from his garage in New York. Over the course of time, Ed has accumulated a massive amount of Jaguar-related material, including a lot of mechanical parts, body panels, books, artwork, and other Jaguar memorabilia and decided…

I closed my last message with “Onwards to 2021.” Well here we are, two months in, and I hope that 2021 is safe and better than 2020 for JCNA members and their families, and that all our lives return to some degree of normalcy. When I grew up in Northern England, the New Year was an important celebration with lots of traditions and family gatherings. The Scottish tradition of Hogmanay carried over into our family celebrations, whereby the men of the house had to leave before midnight and gather in the town or village square, before neighbors would visit each other’s house in turn and a First Foot (a man from another home) nominated to set the first foot across the threshold and lead a toast (Scotch of course) of…