Dear Friends of Region 76,

Tom Taylor has asked me to give a short story on where I am with my restoration of my XK140 DHC. I will continue with the saga as the cars restoration develops but hopefully this first installment will keep all interested parties updated.

I attach three photographs one showing some of the severely decayed rear body tub in the yard at Alyth Restorations following being stripped from the chassis.

The second and third photographs show the rolling chassis and if you look closely at the third photograph you will see a bright red E-type Jaguar showing its front end. This graceful cat belongs to our Treasurer, Derek Cruden.

As a short preamble, the car left Browns Lane in September 1955 as a standard right hand drive XK 140 Drop Head Coupe for the British market. It left the factory with a 3.4 litre twin overhead cam XK engine, resplended in British Racing Green Coachwork with black soft top and tan interior. It resided most of its days in sunny Cornwall before being pensioned off to the suburbs of London and thereafter where its downfall eventually came at the direction of the MOT.

I purchased the car back in June 1989 from its previous owner whom had lived in Surbiton, Surrey for many years. This was at a time when classic car prices were escalating drastically due to speculators primarily in the Southern regions of the UK. It took me 6 months to secure the car from the previous owner with numerous phone calls from offshore and my home in Aberdeen. When I first had the good or some would say the misfortune to inspect the car on the outskirts of London. It was stored in an open ended exterior garage with an old decayed mattress covering the car up from the prying eyes of the general public. I was informed that the car was put off the road in '63 due to requiring track road ends to pass an MOT. I was amazed at how much decay had set into the body even though it was all complete. I was further amazed to hear from the previous owner say it would not take much to put the car back on the road. On successfully purchasing the vehicle after a lot of negotiation, bearing in mind its very poor condition although complete mechanically as seen through my darkened rose tinted glasses, the car was trailered home to Scotland by a specialist transportation vendor. Whilst the car was being transported up North to Aberdeen, it was spotted on the M1 by a keen enthusiast/private investor following the transporter in his Mercedes car. He promptly contacted the owner of the specialist transporter on his cell phone wishing to purchase the car for twice the price I had paid for it just 5 days previous. Although tempted I instructed the driver to keep proceeding and to refuse any further advances on my new purchase. (Maybe this was not the best commercial business decision I have ever made in my life)!

The car arrived on my doorstep in a rather sorry and forlorn condition on a beautiful Mid Summers Day evening and thereafter it lay in my garage for many years whilst I struggled on to complete the restoration of my 1947 - 1.5 litre Jaguar Sports Saloon which eventually took me 10 years to complete. I had started my first car restoration on the 1.5 litre in 1985 thinking it would take me 3 years and I would soon get around to the XK. How wrong I was! I eventually finished the car primarily in 1995. While the XK140 was gathering plenty of dust and I started playing with my newly restored Jaguar, combined with the fact that my job was starting to get in the way of my passion for rescuing Jaguar motor cars.

I now found myself in the predicament of having one beautifully restored Jaguar sitting alongside the sad remnants of the XK 140 and work providing a big distraction in my life. This now takes us on to late 2001 whereupon my company had great plans for me with a desire to send me on to new hotter climes to work in Houston, Texas and then onto the Caribbean to work in Trinidad. Unfortunately for some strange reason unknown to me, the great might of BP was unwilling to sponsor any deal to ship my cars to pastures new or even participate in a restoration of a once almighty piece of British engineering. Before leaving the UK, I made the decision to have the XK140 Drop Head professionally restored by Charlie Palmers team at Alyth Restorations in Perthshire. I made the decision to go this way after great deliberation and working out the cost, realizing that I had no time to pursue this project myself and not knowing when I would return to the United Kingdom. The Grampian Region of the JEC also had the pleasure of visiting Alyth Restorations twice in the period I was as an active member which showed not only to me but all the club members the quality of work that was produced down in Alyth. This was the clincher that swayed me to invest in having the car restored professionally at Alyth and till present I have had no regrets.

The car was transported down to Alyth mid-December 2001 whereafter it was totally stripped of all its components. The sad phone-call came soon after to notify me that the body was beyond economic repair, which I really knew in my heart was the case. I thereafter made the commitment and gave the go-ahead to have an exact copy of the body made using the original bodywork as a pattern also using it for dimensional checks (this is a very costly business, maybe I should have gone for GRP? The only good news at this juncture was that I could reclaim the aluminium boot lid and bonnet that had not previously suffered the ravages of time and inclement weather.

The chassis was the first piece of kit to get worked on. It was stripped of all its running gear, cleaned, blasted and identified where the usual tin worn had exposed itself in its rear hind-quarters. Repair panels were made to outriggers and rear chassis members. The chassis then was reblasted and powder coated in black. From there all new suspension leaf springs and shackles were fitted, back differential unit overhauled, new front suspension and steering gear overhauled cleaned and painted with the steering rack again overhauled and assembled onto the car. All the wheel assemblies were checked, new bearings fitted where applicable with new brake slave cylinders and hydraulic pipe-work fitted. From this work we now have a rolling chassis which looks pretty good in its black paint awaiting the new body arrival. From the photograph attached you will notice the rolling chassis sitting on its original solid wheels. These are to be replaced later for period wires which will be one of the very few deviations from the cars original specification.

In August 2002, I had purchased the rear end of the body tub with new rear wings fitted to my original boot lid. The quality of the craftsmanship was absolutely outstanding and all the gaps between the boot lid and rear tub was a perfect fit, considering it was all built by hand. The body panels were made down in the South of England by English Classic Panels. I was so impressed by the quality of craftsmanship of the rear end that I made an immediate decision to go ahead and produce the whole of the front bulkhead, wings, doors and sills to complete the overall body unit. Again they are matching the body precisely to my aluminium bonnet that I supplied also using the old front body tub for reference checks.

The next key steps on receiving the remaining front body tub due in 12 weeks time will be to mount it on the chassis, complete the fabrication and alignments and then have the body painted in its original colour which was British Racing Green as it had left the factory as new.

I am hoping that my next installment complete with photographs shows the XK in more of its finer glory looking more like a car getting ready to take to the road. Till we meet again and from sunny Houston in the land of many cowboys driving big trucks instead of horses.

Best Regards to all,

Jim Blackhall