Ode to a Car

Charles was reminding me how in the early-80's he had restored an E-Type Jaguar back in Pretoria, South Africa. He had bought the car for ZAR 10,000 and sold it for ZAR 22,000 post-restoration. I asked him if he hadn't regretted letting it go at that price. This was his response (MARK PAUTZ)

It was a 4.2L '64, the first with a full synchro gear box. I have no regrets selling it my friend. I basically swopped it for a brand new VW Golf 16V with leather and aircon. That 16V gave me more pleasure than anything else I have owned, BMW M3 included. The Golf, apart from taking me to work daily, also did many, many gymkanas (with a lot of success I might add), many many laps around Zwartkops and Kyalami including a 3 hour impromptu endurance race at Zwartkops (but that's another story), some mild off-road events and was a faithful carrier to many, amny rallies around South Africa. One memorable trip after the rally in Port Elizabeth back to Pretoria was covered comfortably in 8 hours including petrol and breakfast stops. I was measuring the time taken to cover a kilometer (with those little blue TPA boards at the side of the road). Eighteen seconds flat and we were just cruising.

Then I modified it to 2 litres, it made about 135 kW at the crank with a standard cam(!), standard exhaust & branch and obviously a chip. Yet it was still docile enough to allow my mother to drive it, it started first time, every time, winter or summer and still returned 6,5 l/100. In this modified state it blew away the dreaded Opel 16V "The Boss" on numerous occasions. I got nailed at the lights by only two cars: a Porche 911 Carrera and a modified Uno Turbo (but the less said about that the better)!

I eventually sold it "never raced, rallied or rolled" for R28K with 180,000 kms on the clock. And it still didn't require an oil top up between services.

No E-Type could ever have given me that amount of fun, service, reliability and piel-styf-lekker-kry. Even if it was red.

Now that's one car I should never have sold.... :-)