Thousand Dollar Supercar

Maybe the 19th of December? / come to drag day tomorrow at Meremere.

Looks like rain tomorrow - is this on or off?

I approve. It looks like a performance setup done the right way - properly lowered to a sensible height, less sidewall without resorting to smaller diameter tyres or rims that don't suit the car, wider rubber without bolt-on flares etc. Plus dirty bogan wheels are just cool.

Next weekend I'm momentarily back in town between weeks working in New Caledonia then Wellington. I'll be missing driving, so I approve of this postponement date. =)

Sweet! I like to think I was able to get away with that........ .........because I've got a Jaaaaag.

Oh flip my Jag isn't pre '85.

@fishtailfredI used Print Mighty to generate the t-shirt image, because all the oldschool shirts are on their site: http://oldschool.printmighty.co.nz/ I haven't actually tried to get the shirt created yet though. The image needs a bit of cleaning up and technically it doesn't quite meet the site's resolution requirements. What you should have is a shirt of old Volvos being towed by other old Volvos, with the final image being your cut-down Volvo body campervan. That would flow nicely into the 'oldfool.co.nz'.

Lol at how deliberately massive it is. It looks like you're meant to stand on the ground between the radiator and the front grille, to get close enough to reach the engine?

You're right, I must have remembered my fractions of an inch incorrectly. =( Challengers do still come in the actual correct Jag bolt pattern of 5x4.75", but they're only offered in 15" diameter, as were all the older XJ-S wheel designs.

That's the same stud pattern and rim diameter as my Jag. Don't let me discover how ridiculous / terrible / awesome an XJ-S looks with Challengers. How long before we can expect to see you at a Burgerfuel meet, e.g. tonight?

Stop in and see yoeddynz and scare him with your fuel bills. =) Looking forward to seeing your proper wheels. I had them on my first car but 13 inch and FWD offset. Will you get tyres with white writing for maximum retro bogan effect? Real men smoke Eagers.

My Jag has finally been returned to me! The bill was very scary , because.... I ended up having to cover the funeral expenses of the mechanics who decided to try their luck in the next life. And then the rest of them went on trauma counselling / bereavement leave*, so the job took two months... I listened to the survivors tell their tale. Every nut and joint put up a fight and had to be soaked overnight, the whole rear subframe ended up coming out, and it was all because someone had apparently installed the handbrake pads upside down! This allowed the pads to move such that the backing plates were grinding away at the discs and starting to chip bits off. Jaguar changed the rear suspension for the last four years of XJS production, moving the rear discs outboard. Can't think why. After having not exactly the kindest introduction to the costs of old British luxury grand tourer ownership, I've made myself a new t-shirt design out of owners manual images: Still, I can't say I didn't warn me. And now I have nice brakes, a new WOF and reg and my 'zorst volume is turned up! What does an AJ6 ('the other Jaguar engine') sound like with half its mufflers removed? Not as good as a garbage Rover straight six ironically, but stay tuned! * Not really. Nobody died. Geez.

Instead of that central shift light, you should make a HAL 9000 eye. Thrashing the engine before it's up to temperature invokes a throttle cut and "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen."

Here's what's inside a Jag electric mirror: I opened it because the mirror glass shook around too much to see anything while driving. On the left of the photo is the glass backing plate (complete with heating element because England), and on the right are the two motors. The 'fixed' central ball-and-socket pivot mount with the yellow arrow had in/out play for some reason. I put a washer down its socket hole to pack it out and take up the slack, and it's improved. Another even more important thing I needed to fix was the radio aerial. The original motorised one had failed (big surprise) and the previous owner had replaced it with a manual one. This made me die a little bit inside, especially as the aerial is out on the rear wing. One does not feel very wealthy pulling over and getting out of one's car to go and extend the aerial in view of passing commoners. I bought a new electric aerial (universal, not Lucas) and fitted it with much excitement. Antenna goes up, antenna goes down. Antenna goes up, antenna goes down. I feel like a yuppie. Antenna goes up.. ..and thankfully stops short of my very low garage door. Just need to find an adapter for the annoying coaxial connector on the Jaguar cable back to the head unit. Tomorrow the Jag is going away for a while to get those inboard rear brakes and their awful grinding noises sorted out. Expect some horror stories, but also expect some form of exhaust modifications to be done at the same time.

He'd buy the V12, run straight pipes, paint it in camouflage and imagine he was in a military tank.