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CAR703 – the story so far
Having innocently been used as a daily driver in Newcastle for the first 20 years of it’s life, CAR703 was left in the garage of Thomas Jaguar at Broadmeadow for a refurbishment that simply never happened. Quietly mouldering away with a burnt valve, poor CAR703 seemed destined to slip into obscurity as various bits started to be robbed from it for other cars. Suddenly, in late 2006 it was retrieved by new owner Geoff Bott, who was looking for a car to use in club sprints and the old car looked basically sound. Having paid the princely sum of $2,700 for a non runner that was unregistered, Geoff’s sanity was called into question by some close family members!
A visit to Mike Roddy’s workshop in Melbourne produced a set of TWR wheels and the course was set to make up a TWR JaguarSport replica. This specification was available to option up your standard XJS in the mid 1980s. The hunt was on for the other bits. A 6.0 litre V12 motor with auto box was sourced from a wrecker at Goulburn, uprated springs and a very heavy front sway bar came from K-Mac, Bilstein shocks were located in the USA via E-bay and a genuine TWR steering rack was found in Canberra. (Let Geoff know if you have a 5 speed Getrag that was fitted to this model, at a reasonable price). Plus a TWR steering wheel came from the UK. Other reliability items were fitted by Geoff including through bolting the engine mounts so that they would not fracture under severe load.
The whole lot went back to Brett Thomas at Newcastle for final fettling. Brett reconstructed the entire rear end, rebuilding the 4.1:1 diff sourced from an early XJ6, fitted ventilated rear discs, new castings for the uprights, new universals, the 4 bilsteins and K-Mac springs and a larger bore tuned length exhaust. The alloy radiator was also rejigged to fit better, Very Importantly, the sump was baffled to overcome oil surge.
A final session on the dyno saw 703 tuned for maximum economy below 2500 revs and maximum power over it. The torque figure were impressive and an estimated 450 bhp was attained. Acceleration from a standing start on old hard tyres resulted in an impressive display of tyre smoke for grandad's auto...
Here is CAR703 on the track at Eastern Creek in Sydney - 23/02/2008
What Happened?
Fast forward to 2009 - CAR703 successfully completed the 2008 and the 2009 Targa Tasmania events being awarded a finishers medal in 2008 and achieiving a class win for over 4.0 litre late classics in 2009. We look forward to more fund raising efforts for the OCF in 2010 while appearing selected events in NSW. In the meantime, we repainted CAR703 as all of the old white paint cam off with the stickers in 2009 so Geoff set about repainting it red with the assistance of Brian Foster as chief paint remover. Se the pics as it looks now in the gallery.
