Mondays and Wednesdays, my bride goes to visit her mother for the day, and I play in the garage. I had my vinyl playing Tom Jones Greatest Hits, on my 70s vintage BSR McDonald turntable, going into my Pioneer quadraphonic receiver, and Blasting through my front Cerwin-Vega! and rear KLH speakers, and I was ready to get into trouble.

A pretty slender 56 year old gal from down the street walked towards the noise, with some cold beer, and sat in my cave, and watched me work, and added some always needed company. I pulled the 9' stairs down, and just started looking through my old car parts, in the attic. Lo and Behold, I found the luggage rack from the XKE.

I must have been very thorough back then, because I had packed up all the rubbers, screws, and feet, and wired the bag to the rack. It may have come off a Spitfire, but if that is the case, there is another luggage rack somewhere.

If you wonder about the red tips on all my cars, the 928S Factory Special came with a no longer made ANSA exhaust, and it had red tips. Everything I have had since then has red inner tips. It is also a good way to see if your car is running correctly. Dirty tips, mean something odd is happening in the engine, or you need to decarbonize the intake and valves.....Learn something new every day.

Something else neat with this 60s rack is that it sits up high enough, for the 3rd brake light to show unobstructed, so the law won't be offended. An XK8 doesn't really need a luggage rack, because the trunk is massive compared to other cars of it's ilk. I just like the retro look. If you don't, you don't have to look. I also have an XKE type lower scoop under the front, feeding air to the new aftermarket Bug oil cooler, for cooling the trans. I don't know what else to do, except rip out the comfortable seats, and install a pair of hardly padded XKE buckets....NOT!!!!

Here are the results of my insanity, other than my still mildly high head. I must have measured a hundred times, so things came out right.....Hope you enjoy my lack of control.....Be cool....Mike

 

you really shouldn´t be left alone :-)

Why not designing a new fiberglas or carbon Convertible Top Stowage/Cover ...

 

I salute you sir, I do not share your taste in music, nor, in the presence of a slender 56 year old female would it have occurred to me to go into the attic looking at old car parts, (unless of course the plan was to invite her into a private area thereby encouraging the normally prudish girl to leave, and encourage the naughty girl to remain)
But the passion, I get the passion, it keeps us young, it's keeps us engaged, it keeps us connected.
Lack of control and passion go hand in hand. I may not agree with what you did, but I love why you did it.
Regards,

 

I like it on your car. Alone I don't think it would work but with everything else you have done it definitely works and adds to look you are going for

 

Well, well....the story started off well enough!

To each their own and as you say those that object don't have to look, as others said I salute your lack of self control...:icon_beer chug:

 

No pics of the pretty gal?

 

Mike, First off, I like the look, same one as on my TR6. Second, glad you are too far away for us to get together. I have 50 years of good used British car parts, threw away the bad stuff a couple years back when we moved. A lot of junk really.
You would enjoy what we are doing now, on the finishing side of putting a Spitfire body on a '72 GT6 frame. Not as easy as the other way round, I mean putting the running gear of GT6 in the Spit.
You keep doing what you do, be careful with all the young groupies running around, she was 20 years younger than me.


Wayne

 

Probably very utilitarian, I know it would get me a couple of extra road days the way my wife packs. The part that scares me; the drill and the first hole through the rear deck, I would rather do my own root canal.

 

DannyXKR.....a friend that I meet with a XKR 100 has the fiberglass cover, like the Thunderbirds of the mid 60s, and although it changes the look considerably, it looks like all it needed is that rocket coming out the back for that Batmobile look

White Bear, and Norri....She may have been only pretty to me. More Biker than Debutante. Not any tattoos except one around her wrist, but plenty of eye shadow, long hair with some Elvira gray stripes in it, and a shortish blue jean skirt, and her legs crossed demurely, with a Sons of Arthritis Ibuprofen Chapter T shirt tied at her navel. I was wearing the same shirt, but it looked a lot better on her.

She helped me get the parts out of the attic, and proceeded to sit in one of my lawn chairs, and started passing out the beer. I have always liked my women kind of dirty if you know what I mean. My wife was that way, until she became a grandmother, then transformed into Mother Teresa, so the grand sons wouldn't know how wild she was. I do miss those days.

Waterloo....Thanks for understanding what has been done. It has been a labor of love, and my goal has been met, except for some fresh British Racing Green paint. At the moment she is a 10 footer with dents and scratches, from being buried in hay and lumber, but it will happen if my friend doesn't die, in Andersonville S. Carolina next summer.

Jandreu.... You know me well enough to not be surprised. Thanks for that!

CJD777.....I think we would be cool neighbors. Between your junk and mine, I think we could build something out of this world.
I am responsible for putting a 302 Ford, with a rumpity rump bump stick, into an MGB. We ended up using an automatic, that cuts down on even more room, in the interior, but I try to do what the customer wants. She wanted a Jaguar rear end, but I explained to her that it was not as easy as putting one in a hotrod, and if I could do it, she would not be getting any road time during the summer.

Daro31....I don't have much to worry about, as far as my wife packing for me, because she sees no use in my toys, and rarely goes for a ride.

As for drilling that first hole, I must have put on a hundred luggage racks on Audis. The secret is putting it about where you want it, and placing something very heavy on it. I use a 8" piece of rail road rail.

You then measure it from the top of the trunk lid, and even it out. I put a piece of masking tape down, at the top and bottom of the rack now. I then measure from the rack to the sides of the trunk rack, and adjust it with a small mallet, until both sides are even. Take your top measurements again, and move it the same way as you moved the sides. You do this about 10 times, and then drill your first hole, and put a screw in it, and make final adjustments.

The cool thing is, that you can be off as much as 3/16", before the human eye will pick it up. My first 10 Audi 100s I was sweating bullets, but then the owner came out and assured me he wouldn't can me, if I screwed the pooch.

Thanks all of you......Be cool....Mike

 

I surprised myself in that I like the look with the rack. (Your car. You did not provide pictures of the groupie. )

I had one on a Fiat spider. On that car it provided additional structural integrity!

As they say, it's your car, so have fun in your garage.

 

Hi Mike,


Also in the same boat with regard to not being left alone for too long. Love the description of your "guest"; always flattering to have a young woman around (at my age, 56 is young). I really like the look of the car; you appear to have closed in on the XKE-ish look you were going for. As with CJD777, I wish you we lived closer; imagine the trouble we could get into!


I'm a part-time musician, and have been for a very long time. Back in the 60's, I played keyboards with the then-starting-out singer, Neil Diamond. Back then, it was the beginning of the end for tube-type amplifiers; solid state was the way to go, with more power available without the accompanying heat from the tubes (4 KT88 tubes could heat a room in winter). Vinyl records were pretty much state of the art, but beginning to fade out in favor of 8-track cassettes (and we all know how well that worked out). I still have a component turntable, but my Macintosh amp is, unfortunately, long gone in the past.


Fast forward to today. Tube instrument and stereo amplifiers are once again where it's at, analog instruments and keyboards are staging a comeback, and vinyl records are proliferating at an incredible rate (digital music is near-perfect, but it lacks soul). Guess it comes under the heading that everything old is new again if you live long enough.


You and I have slightly different tastes in music, but Tom Jones is an incredible singer and deserves an attentive listen. I'm down with the Doobie Brothers, Bad Company, ZZ Top, and others of that generation. I truly believe that there's a direct connection between music and the appreciation of (and the ability to tinker with) our rolling works of art.


Live long and prosper.


Max

 

I'm with you Mike.
I call my fortress "The New Geezer Garage." While I do have a collection of vinyl along with a turntable and a Rock-Ola jukebox with several hundred 45 rpm records for it, I have a transistorized Sony surround sound system in the Garage. I crank up the Oldies (that's tunes from the 50s and 60s) including Neil Diamond and Tom Jones while playing with Ruby, my '99 XK8.
Two photos attached show Ruby in her home and a shot of the work benches she faces, including the computer cabinet where the amp and other electronics are kept. I have 11 days worth of Oldies in MP3 format that I use as a source for my sounds. Since my hearing is shot from too much Rock and Roll and too many airplanes, the MP3 provide good enough sound for me.

 

mike, I just reread your post and I have to thank you for the following image...

"on my 70s vintage BSR McDonald turntable, going into my Pioneer quadraphonic receiver, "

I have not thought of this for years...

In the mid 70's I started smoking weed with a buddy that lived in a farm shack. In the wood stove room, about 12' sq, he had a speaker in each corner with a huge wire spool in the middle of the room. In the room next to this was his audio equipment which included a Pioneer Quad amp. In the winter we would stoke up the stove and the dobbies and get mighty baked out and Terry would disappear. Next thing we knew the music would start going in circles around the room. Old T was back ther f##king with our heads on the quad. Man those were good times.

Thanks....

 

just think ... if the one with the rack had posed on the rack after installation,
we could have had another post in the Girls on Jaguars thread