At work in southern Egypt
During much of late 2008 and 2009 effort on the restoration of the 1969 Jaguar XKE 2+2 had to be put on hold due to work related travel that took me literally around the world – from Central America to the Egypt, the Middle East, India and Malaysia. It was an exciting, but demanding year indeed. I ended up back in England for a while, spending part of 2009 at Oxford, England to wind down and help put the project I was working on into some organized shape. I had spent time at Cambridge earlier in my life, but in recent years have spent more time at Oxford – which I enjoy very much. Regrettably though, I did not even have enough free time to visit the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust in Coventry. Shame. I was able to make one interesting purchase in England though.
English artisan George Walter with the Jaguar E-type crafted from clay and finished in iridescent white.
I had occasion to visit the Covent Gardens Market in London from time to time and met a potter there who creates really wonderful glazed clay sculptures of automobiles. His name is George Walter, hails from Essex and has been creating this wonderful pottery for 20 years. He happened to have one of an Jaguar E-type finished in a wonderful iridescent white. Even though it was a Series 1 FHC, well I could not resist. As it turns out I am in very good company owning one of George Walter’s creations. His commissions have included a car for former Prime Minister, Baronness Margaret Thatcher, and a miniature black cab, presented to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth by London’s cabbies. Not bad! If you would like something really interesting in your auto memorabilia collection visit George’s website at http://www.vintagepottery.org and see what he has available – or commission something special. I can tell you that my little clay E-type was a lot cheaper than its big sibling back in the States!
Jaguar E-type in clay.
The Motorphile 
I’m glad I came across your blog. I have the same year and model and will be taking on similar projects. No use reinventing the wheel!
The front brakes lost all the fluid the other day. In the investigation process I decided to remove the bonnet. Once I had it off, I was not quite sure what to do with it. I built a platform on casters, bolted the unit to it nose side up and can now roll it around the shop to work on it. (It looks like a shark standing on it’s own!)
I knew something good would come out of this.
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Thanks for the comment Jeff – and good luck on the rebuild. Someone has to stand up for the ol’ Series II 2+2. Enjoy! Let me know how it goes. Will you have a blog?
As for pulling the hood – cumbersome and hard to store to say the least! That is why I like the ‘open-wide’ approach that I talk about in one of my later posts. It keeps the hood on the car, but gets it out of your way to work on front brakes and suspension etc. By the way – you can also get the engine and tranny out without removing the hood through another trick. The dolly rig you built to move the hood – if you have to take off – sounds like a good idea.
I am just finishing reassembling the rear end on mine to reinstall after doing all the rear brakes, springs/shocks, bushings, u-joints etc. – but I afraid my blog is still far behind the actual progress on the car.
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