QUESTION 1: How long have you been interested in E-Types?
My parents and I immigrated to Southern California from the West Midlands of England – not too far from the Jaguar factory in Coventry. We came here with just $300 in 1962. My Dad had worked in the factories and mills in and around Birmingham. He taught himself to fix cars and landed a job at the BMC dealership in Anaheim. I remember he brought me in to see where he worked. The showroom was filled with MG’s and Triumphs, but the Jaguars stood out as something special. My Dad eventually opened his own British car repair shop in the late 1960’s – Coventry Imported Car Service. We lived in Dana Point and the shop was in Anaheim, so I didn’t get to go in much. And when I did, I pretty much just pushed a broom, degreased the men’s room, and cleaned gunk off of parts in the solvent tank. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn much about spinning spanners. So, in 1972, one of my dad’s customers needed a lot of work on his E-type but couldn’t afford it. Dad bought the car from him and used it as his daily driver from ’72 to his passing in 2015. It’s the car that I am the steward of today.