Hagerty Video Transcript

We’re in rural northern Maine a place that not too many people get to we’re about to discover a car in a building that I’ve seen before and it’s pretty amazing but even more amazing than that are rod and Ruth the husband and wife’s own personal story you could almost do a

Movie about it you know give up a life on Wall Street and come and wind up living in Maine go to Bonneville and hang out with record breakers like Bert Monroe and motorcycle racing and hot rods and road racing giving lectures about the house they live in a real

Significant find and I hope you like it today’s sponsor is Consumer Cellular they’ve reached to out to us because they they dig barn finds but they also dig born fine people like you they know the money that you save each month on your cellular plan you could invest in your barn find new

Wheels tires rebuild that motor it’s a no-brainer so to save money for your next project car check out the link in the description below five years ago when I stopped by uh to visit Rod Ruth he showed me what he had in the barn he said I don’t have my

Cunningham anymore but come on in take a look what I have and this has kind of been in the back of my mind for the last five years it’s now got a cover on it I don’t think it had a cover in the past no it didn’t

So we have a Jaguar E-Type Roadster you know if that’s not you know an interesting enough horn find this one has been heavily modified back in the day modified and he’ll tell us a story about this back well 60 years ago so it’s a Jaguar E-Type Rod what year is

This car a 62. 62 so that’s the second year of the E-Type so it’s a a really rare car I think I got it about 64. and I got it just to put the Chevy in so you had no intention of keeping it as a Jaguar no and it constantly

Blue cam cover gaskets on the Jaguar engine on the Jaguar engine how long did you drive it with a Jag engine oh maybe six months why didn’t you just buy a Corvette these are so much nicer than they were back there yep you took this stock Jaguar E-Type to a place in

Brooklyn what was the guy’s name Al garz algars Speedway Motors the frame front frame is between the uh firewall and the front cross member was manufactured by him so this bolts right here so that whole front is new right he also uh modified uh it was a suspension some way

So it didn’t infringe on the Corvette engine okay so to modify steering arms probably uh oh no I know what it was it was the torsion bar mounts were modified now he was a Jaguar shop yet he he he he liked putting Chevy Engines nobody thought

Anything like back in the day like oh you shouldn’t put a Jaguar Chevy in a Jaguar it was just a car right as a matter of fact I think at the last lime rock guy who won the uh National Championship in a 427 Cobra he had an E-Type that he put a

351 Cleveland then and I beat him with this and is this a 283 or a 327 327. I’ve had everything from a 327 to a 377. in here a stroker and so is this a four-speed like a Muncie gearbox uh it’s a it’s a borg bordner T10 sport water T10 isn’t that

Something the first one of these he did I think the third E-Type Coupe in the country and they did he had a 377 with a Latham silvercharger on top and it it was just incredibly fast so or so where did you find this car I bought it

From Al oh Al Gars cars just to have him convert it do you remember what it cost you to have it converted to a Chevy you just burned the bills oh you just burned the bills yeah I know I don’t do you remember what you paid for the Jag the

Way it was stock I think some somewhere around 2500 that windshield’s worth that much now so this was this your daily driver I used to uh when I raced motorcycles I used to haul the trailer with it so you pulled a trailer with a Jaguar yes from from from Maine

Uh no I lived in Pennsylvania at the time so you trailered behind here from Pennsylvania to Daytona no I didn’t take this car to Daytona okay but I did go to Danville Virginia oh vir yeah as a matter of fact how oh there was a racer

From uh Washington DC I think and he took it around the track and almost got us kicked out didn’t you tell me that you took us to Lime Rock and at a Jaguar event oh I took it to many Jaguar events at Lime Rock and it turned the best time of day

Pretty much yeah oh geez so the last time you drove this is 85 86 it looks like yeah so it’s been parked here yes yeah 40 years almost wow and you just parked it here like there was there was no reason you stopped driving it you just well it was

Running on about seven cylinders Ruth had come up and uh guest wasn’t quite appropriate so it looks to me that these fenders have been flared in the back yes so this it’s not only a mechanical modification you had the body modified as well oh yes you know I gotta say

These flared fenders are sexy as hell when I had them built I had you know much wider rear tires what kind of rims did you have any special rims on here I think uh six inch in front seven inches back there just standard Corvette yeah yeah they’re a lot easier to run than

Having to True up wire wheels oh yeah and then side pipes this is the must have made great noise yes yeah what a beautiful car man can I open the door here hopefully Nothing Live will jump out of me if a mouse Runs Out step on it yeah I think I see

The tracings of mouse activity in here but you can see yeah it’s got kind of a Corvette shifter with a lockout reverse when I get to the side I’ll be able to see how many miles around but that’s got the early dashboard with the toggle switches

I’m going to see if I get on the other side there and look at the driver’s side dashboard so why’d you take the nose off it has a bad dent in the nose oh really top of it so it says 20 587 miles do you

Think that’s I guess it might be oh look at you got your Champion spark plug tune up stickers here but I can’t read it sadly Stock Jaguar wheel I wonder how you open the trunk it might I have a sort of a Zeus Fastener on it yeah there’s Mouse activity here so you still got the like just a standard Rim interestingly with the white wall tire well that one fit in the hole I bet this

Is a pretty sound condition rust wise the floors on these things rust out pretty badly did it handle pretty well oh this color handles superbly even with a trailer and motorcycles on the back yeah well what you have to realize is putting a Chevy in takes about 150

Pounds off the front end it’s lighter than the six yeah man wow it’s beautiful I’m gonna go take a look at that nose over there what do you think you want to do with this car now well I’d like to get it back on the road no kidding hallelujah

It’s absolutely the best color I ever had and you’ve had some cars the other fast car I had was a db4 GT Aston Martin that I actually I bought it from GERD and Waddles but when you drop the clutch all the rear wheels that would bounce up and down no kidding so

Are the front fenders they look stock they’re stock yeah okay the rear ones are flared and the dent oh is that the dent right there yes I could see if the other side so if I can lower this down yeah I can see the dip right there sadly

Hmm But the paint is still amazing on this this paint is how old half a century or something yeah probably lacquer wow so this is the trailer you used to tow it from that well that was the last trailer I used and so you Road raced motorcycles do you still have some

Of those the last thing I raced was the Vincent and that unfortunately is in pieces around Massachusetts race to Vincent not many people can I mean most people haven’t seen a Vincent did you race at Daytona yeah in a Vincent no kidding the first year I went down I raced in vintage

And it ate a valve and the second time I went down I ran in battle of the twins was basically open to any kind of twin during the qualifying race I dropped it on the in the infield oh figured I didn’t qualify and found out I

Had qualified and I had time to do just about everything but gas it up and I ran out of gas oh darn are you a car guy that raced motorcycles are you a motorcycle guy that drove fast cars or are you kind of 50 50. put it this way

Uh I when I was thinking back in the mid 60s I could race a motorcycle for the amount of money it would take to keep Just Tires on a 427 Cobra yeah yeah you know so many times we meet the owners of these cars we seldom get to uh hear from

Their spouses about their experiences with cars and motorcycles whatever so what do you remember about this car did I tell them like still when we lived in Princeton and we’re on Route 1 and there was a red Jag that was stolen so the state troopers pulled us over and

Followed us to the barracks said you might be able to outrun me but you can’t outrun my gun and we had to go in separate rooms well they talked about the the car and whose it was and show I mean there were fun things so you met each other as

Youngsters you were involved in this Jaguar also 60s yeah in the 60s when he got it and how about motorcycles you were you know were you yeah I was burning my leg on those exhausts really um there was something you know it was a Norton or something I was always burning

My leg on now you you happened to mention me before that Burt Monroe carried you around at Bonneville how did that ever happen we took the Vincent out to the West Coast and went to the Vincent Owners Club out in L.A all those people and went to the

Salt Flats and Burt Monroe was that year who was there it was one of the earlier years it wasn’t the later it would have been mid 60s so many like I’m glad you’ve called because so many like memories and things of all these vehicles and cars and like when I grew

Up like in Pennsylvania and it was a race Racecourse right around our house and Carol Shelby would come in his friend hidden in Pennsylvania no because my father worked for this guy and and so Carol Shelby would be there eating lunch on the lawn Alexis Dupont all these people

You know and we just thought you know Mercedes going his coops were normal allards were normal effies and Cooper racing cars were normal you know this stuff man you know it was kind of neat it’s neat wow we’re in the barn now the motorcycles are 100 feet away in the basement of his

House and we’re going over there right now Oh so here’s the side car you were talking about right now did you ride around with Ruth from the sidecar yeah and we took our dogs and so what what model is that one is he was a Virago but it has a 920 top end on

It did you do that work or did you have it done I had it done okay and there’s your Rickman now so a Rickman tell to tell tell our viewers what a Rickman is isn’t it a a modified frame that you can adapt lots of it different engines to I

Think they ought to make three or six hundred of the of the Honda ones so you could you’d buy it it’s almost like a street rod for a motorcycle yeah you could apply different engines to it okay so has this ever been completed no and would you have raced that if you

Completed it I probably would have yeah okay and then this one is that is a td1c Yamaha and it’s in a Yetman frame he made stiffer and lighter frames is this where you scuffed it is this when you went down no no that it was the the fence

That I went to oh okay okay I can show you probably the scuff marks on the pipes oh so if I if I was gonna like take all your motorcycles away is there one you’d want back whether it’s here or maybe one you had in the past well the Vincent the

Vincent that’s your favorite well you’ve got a neat collection and you know as opposed to other people you kept the car you kept the cars you kept the bikes most people were regret having sold them what an amazing morning we’ve had we are in rural Maine

And you don’t think you know you think there’s gonna be farms and tractors and things like that but between rod and his wife Ruth what a life they’ve LED I mean lived in the West Indies worked on Wall Street bought a Jag that was very almost new and had a Chevy engine put

Immediately in it he’s on the Cunningham and Aston Martin raced motorcycles at Daytona uh still owns a Vincent Black Shadow still has the Jag uh still has the house Bonneville Burt Monroe if you’ve been paying attention like this is pretty pretty significant to meet people like this is once in a lifetime

Opportunity and you know I feel very fortunate to just come across these people as I’m finding old cars you know I’m and I’m not the only one I mean there are people like this all around the country around the world you can meet them too

And even if you don’t come with a way with a piece of rust that you bought from them you come away with a great story that you can keep for the rest of your life happy behind