This is for Bill H, and anyone else who cares to read it.

I had a story published in a local jag magazine, and on the web about my old xke that my dad left me before he died. I sold it after 11 years of doing my own maintenance on it. Money got tight, and my present situation dictated that my past be sold.

Anyway, I wrote this the night before I advertised it to cleanse my soul. Oddly enough, the jag publisher never acknowledged its submission, hahaha. I guess the selling of a car is too depressing to read about..

My XKE at the crossroads.

My father’s E-type still awaits me, out in the garage. But now the car my dad bought in my childhood and kept throughout my adolescence waits not for my hand on its fender or my key in its lock, but my decision regarding its place in my future.

When my dad gave it to me prior to his death, he wondered aloud how long I would be able to keep up with a car as needy as a Jaguar; and now I have come to the juncture he predicted almost 10 years prior. Circumstances can change quickly for a young family—as I have now—and desire to keep an icon of the past is paled before the light of need. The decision of whether or not to sell confronts me seemingly at every turn lately, much as it did for my dad when he owned it. Some things, it seems, do not change.

It seems timeless out there in its garage, like some automotive picture of Dorian Grey. All around it seasons change, and yet it seems to not change at all. That is one of the blessings of being in a garage, where the pace of seasons is just a different picture through the window. In its earlier life, you could mark the season’s change by examining the detritus left on it by its surroundings. Spring was pollen and leaf buds. Morning would find the black hide of the car dusted yellow, as the wind stirred the large trees that shadowed our drive. Summer was rain and dust and the downfalls would trace perfect trails in spots along its flanks. Fall brought leaves and pine needles to it, which found their way into every seam, crack and opening. Breeding grounds for rust they were, and the Jag required fastidious watching and cleaning to keep its cowling and drain channels clear. Winter brought snow, which in my childhood piled high upon its sloped roof, disguising its lines but not its shape. There it would stay, waiting for the sun to warm its black hood and the oil in its sump. Then it would be ready, and the sounds of spring coming to our yard were punctuated by the starter growling the engine over until it lit. Today I walk by the open window of the Jaguar in my garage, and stick my head inside. Here in the jags interior I can smell the summer of my youth, and for a moment feel the heat of the asphalt evaporating the water from it following the Jag’s wash. Only in my mind can I now see that time, sitting in the driver’s seat with my feet yet not reaching the pedals. I can picture the wheel in my smooth, small hands (then too young to drive) and can see through the water-speckled windshield my old house, and my father emerging from the basement door, garden tools in hand. He does not see me but I know he knows where I am.

I always imagined the E-Type’s crouched stance in the garage as being similar to a racehorse standing in the gate at the track. With its low nose pressed against the door, it seemed to be twitching and jumping within its box; making its rider tense and expectant--ready to pounce at the sound of the bell and the sight of the gate swinging away
Now I may well be leading the jag by its nose from its paddock and allowing a new rider to take the bridle from me. I will stand back seemingly impassive as the prospective buyer considers his potential purchase. He will run his hands down its flanks, sit down into its seat and peer at the gauges. I will stand there and regard the reflected images in its paint and perhaps trace the bead of the front fender with my finger. I will distract myself watching the light change across its arched paint, an outsider at long last. He will likely appraise the car knowingly, but I know he will fail to assess the enormity of this car’s worth as I do; for he is merely purchasing an interesting car, and I am selling my past.

My dad contemplated selling his XKE many times. There is a love/hate aspect to sports cars, when their expense and idiosyncrasies seem to outweigh their favors. As jealous as a lover, they beguile you with scent and movements, making you forget how they treated you before. They move lithely back into your charms, with passionate promises of a better tomorrow and a light laugh dismissing your concerns. So it has been, so it will be.
My dad understood this, I am sure, even though he never told me. I found that a love of a machine such as this Jaguar could resist common sense, and fail to fall ill during winter. It may persist during drought, and revive easily when rain returns. But love cannot always forestall the reality of this day, and perhaps my dad saw that too. He is forever now, and perhaps I realize his car may not be.

What would bring one to this time and place where memories are sold? Explanations are many, and the balance of my thoughts sway back and forth so lightly I do not know where the needle shall rest. Though I am happy with my life, and love my family more than I can say, the past holds some fond comforts and its sentiments are well known to me. There is simplicity to life when one is young, when driving after dark means lying on the backseat watching the dark shapes of trees go by. The dark can seem menacing to you then, but the backs of your parents’ heads reassure you as they watch the road ahead and you are lulled to sleep with the low tones of their talk. Now I pilot my children through the dark, my eyes alert and my concentration keen. They sleep in the back, their rest a silent testament to their faith in me. I will not fail.

If my Jaguar has become symbolic of a time, are those associations contingent on its presence in my life? Always the question: Will my memories resist the loss of the icon of their remembrance? Will my recall of the wind coming in the window fade when the sounds of its engine reverberate no longer in my ears? As a child I heard the car leave my house on occasion without me. I can still hear the song of the engine, rising slightly and quietly to where my dad would shift, and then the sound would fade; lost to the trees and distance. I find myself contemplating a return to that position now, watching and listening as the car leaves me to points unknown. I think about that child who was I, wondering where his dad was going, and wishing he were along for the ride. My dad shifted out of my hearing years before the car that he gave me, and now I wonder if the sound of my dad’s car leaving me will again be heard; echoing with a great finality across the decades; leaving me here alone.

But of course, that cannot be the end of the story. By and by I will turn back to my house, with its now empty garage. I will walk up my driveway, and feel a small hand take mine. The void in the garage will be accommodated with other machines, but none so irreplaceable to me, but perhaps that is as it should be. The past is gone, and I have a childhood now not to remember, but one to create.

Windsor, you are a gem and a credit to this site.

Hmmm. Pistol stories, Jag stories, motorcycle and boat stories, all on a Barth website. Here's a Citroen story.

Like Windsor's Jaguar story, this one was published ten years ago, or so, in a couple Citroen publications.


Remembering Traction Avant
by
Roy F. Wilson

Stationed in Japan after World War II, I saw a shiny black car with French license plates. It looked like a chopped and channeled ‘34 Ford. But the exhaust note said it was no V-8 and the racy clipped fenders hadn’t come from Dearborn. I needed a closer look.

One day I saw it parked. I examined it and discovered it was not a customized Ford but a Citroen 11L imported to transport French diplomats. I fell in love with its sleek lines and unique sound.

I began learning about “traction avant,” torsion bar suspension and Michelin “Pilote” radial tires with their funny looking tread. I marveled that this car, so technologically advanced in 1947, had been produced since 1934. I coveted it but it wasn’t for sale.

In the next four years I went through a war surplus jeep, ‘46 Ford, ‘47 Nash, ‘48 Austin, and a 1950 MG TD. I had ordered a TC but they switched models while I was waiting. Disappointed with the TD at first, I learned to appreciate its technological improvements but it never was as handsome as the TC.

I became friends with an Air Force sergeant who owned a Citroen. It was an 11L but it had been made in England, not France. The Brits called it a “Light 15,” and other things distinguished it from the French Citroen as well. It had right-hand drive and gorgeous red leather upholstery instead of the plain gray fabric in the French cars. The fit and finish seemed better too. My sergeant friend was a superb mechanic and machinist and our friendship lasted until his death more than twenty years later, but that’s another story.

During the MG period I got married. Next year, my highly pregnant wife could no longer enter and exit the MG. I had to sell it, but now a Citroen agency was open in Tokyo and I had my “Traction Avant.”


The Citroen steered like a truck. I sat bolt upright, feet flat on the floor; a change from the low-slung MG. Clutch, brake and throttle pedals were hung on the firewall and pressed straight down. The gear lever stuck out of a hole in the dash and the three-speed shift pattern was backwards from the American mode. You had to be careful not to grind the gears, the synchromesh was slow.

But the oddity of the driving compartment vanished quickly, and this four-door sedan handled better than anything I had ever driven, including the MG. It cornered dead level at any speed and it went where you pointed it. It flew over rough roads that pitched ordinary cars into the ditch. The “Pilote” tires with their strange squiggly sipes stuck like glue on wet cobble stones. They even sailed over wet streetcar tracks that set ordinary cars sliding. I loved to drive the car and ran it in sports car races and rallies in Japan.

It returned with us to the States in February, 1952. Driving from Seattle to my new assignment in Salt Lake City, we crossed the Idaho-Utah border. There was a sharp crack and the windshield crazed over. I thought a passing car had splashed slush on the windshield but the tempered glass had shattered. It creaked and groaned and spit tiny grains of glass on us but it stayed in place. I couldn’t see through it so I bundled up, rolled the window down and drove on with my head sticking out in the increasing snow storm and 20 degree F. temperature.

The next town was called Tremonton and the auto glass man had his shop in his garage. Reluctantly he deigned to work on our unfamiliar, un-American object but not until he finished the job he was on. Two hours later, half way through our job, his wife called him to lunch. For another two hours we shivered outside in the cold; a young man and woman with a young son and an infant daughter recovering from an ear infection, in a snow storm, in a car with no windshield. The bill was high. Welcome to Utah.

During my Utah assignment, I raced and rallied with the local sports car club. Some of my adventures I would not try today with a full roll cage and body harness. I was younger then.

Other Utah adventures included a ticket from the local gendarmes for the yellow French headlights and a long wait for the local foreign car agency to find clear bulbs. Then, one dark night, a chuckhole bordered by a railroad track I didn’t see, ruined two of my Michelin “Pilotes.” Tires size 165 x 400mm were not to be found in Utah. The spare, plus an odd-size non-radial tire, kept me going until proper tires were shipped in. They were 165 x 400, all right, but were Pirrellis with a hard tread compound that had poor traction and wore out quickly.

During this period, the paint developed road rash from driving too fast, too close to other cars, on gravelled back roads. A repaint was needed and I was tired of “any color you want as long as it’s black.” I pored over paint catalogs and selected a light blue Mercury shade called “Banff Blue.” I prepped the car and a body man friend shot the paint in a borrowed spray booth. We lightened some of the blue to off-white and gave it a two-tone roof.

In 1953, the thrashing I had given it began to show and the engine needed overhaul. I ordered English language manuals from Slough, but parts had to come from France. This complicated endeavor required letters, international money orders, dealings with customs brokers, etc. Finally, a wooden crate arrived with the needed parts and I began the overhaul in the garage behind my quarters on the military post.

I had done some tuning but this was my first serious overhaul. To be charitable, I was climbing a steep learning curve. I developed a lot of memories, not all pleasant.

For example: The bottoms of the wet cylinder barrels were set in thin gaskets. Before installing the cylinder head, the barrels had to protrude a precise distance above the block surface. Too high and the barrels warped when the head was torqued. Too low and water could leak into the crankcase. The proper distance was established by the thickness of the bottom gasket. This came in three sizes to accommodate production variations. After the head was torqued, the block had to be inverted and the cylinders measured for concentricity.

The French, in their wisdom, made the gaskets in pairs but there was so much variation in the barrels, it was impossible to match the specifications perfectly. After swapping gaskets and barrels around I finally had three cylinders in tolerance and one just barely out. I developed new muscles and an extended vocabulary from turning the block over and over, removing and reinstalling the head, swapping gaskets and barrels, and rechecking concentricity.The job was finished just in time for me to leave the service for college and we were off to Denver.

The consequences of my earlier mistreatment were piling up. In 1954, the clutch went out and a “beater” carried the family while parts came from France. Then a bearing cap broke in the transmission and destroyed the ring and pinion gears as well. Another “beater” served while those parts were pending from France. When they arrived, my Air Force friend took leave from his assignment at Holloman A.F.B. in New Mexico and he helped me rebuild the transmission.

After a brake job by an “expert with thirty-years in the business,” an improperly assembled hub stripped out. Luckily, my friend found an axle shaft in his parts bin and sent it to me. By the time this was fixed, the “beater” was a permanent fixture, college was finished and I had a real job. My non-enthusiast friends had named the car “Wilson’s Folly.”

These trials were not without compensation. I car pooled with some other students to an evening job across town. I remember a snowy winter midnight when the “traction avant,” aided by tire chains, brought us home while fellow employees spent the night in town. Those days, radial tires were unknown in the U.S. and the chains were not designed for them. They left permanent gouges in the tire sidewalls, but they got us home.

Another autumn night, returning to Denver from a sports car race in Aspen, Colorado, an early-season snowstorm hit the high passes. “Traction avant” kept us moving while others slipped off the road, and we got home.

We bought a house in a Denver suburb and for nearly a year, the Citroen handled my daily commute. Then the other hub stripped and the factory would no longer sell me parts. The car was a real orphan now but out of love, stupidity, or both, I couldn’t let it go.

For two years it gathered dust in the carport. In 1959, I heard about industrial epoxy adhesives. I bought some and, to the derisive laughter of my motoring friends, I glued the hub to the axle. Meantime, water had seeped into a cylinder and the engine seized. Now my neighbors were having back yard parties to watch me sweat and swear over the car.

After my earlier experience I was not going to remove the cylinder head so I gave each cylinder a generous daily soaking with penetrating oil. After several days the engine turned freely. I started it and it ran as though nothing had happened. To the chagrin of my derisive friends, the glued hub held, and for three glorious months I had the joy of driving it again.

Then came the offer of a better job in another state. The Citroen wasn’t trustworthy enough to transport the family and it didn’t occur to me to tow it. I advertised it without success and the day before we moved, a service station operator bought it for thirty-five dollars. I had owned the car for more than eight years and had been able to drive it no more than half that time.

I’ve often wondered what happened to that car. One curiosity revolves around salt on the underside. On one trip to races at the Bonneville Salt Flats, the salt thrown up by the tires was moist, and it caked under the fenders. I wasn’t worried. They were heavily undercoated and I planned to wash it off as soon as I got home. On the way, however, we encountered a stretch of fresh tar which splashed up and sealed in the layer of salt. I don’t think I ever got around to cleaning it off, but when I sold the car seven years later there was no evidence of rust.

My friend’s car from Slough is probably running today. At his duty station in Florida in the late 1950s, he stripped it to the bare hull, painted everything inside and out with Derusto paint, cadmium plated most of the bolts and loose hardware, and reassembled it. I think he took it with him on his next assignment in Europe and may have sold it there.

So if anyone has a ‘40s era Light Fifteen from Slough, that has a lot of cad plated hardware and painted interior surfaces that weren’t done at the factory, you now know why. Conversely, if you have a 1951 French 11L with strangely rusted out fenders, and traces of light blue paint, your mystery is also solved.

In fifty-one years I have owned thirty-three vehicles (that I remember). They include twenty-five U.S., and eight foreign makes and models. None of them caused the kind of grief I got from that Citroen but the Citroen is the only one for which I have any nostalgia. No other car gave me so much joy to drive.

In forty years I have seen five Citroen 11L’s in the flesh, and occasionally there is one in film or television. Each time I see one my pulse quickens. No other car does that. Despite its problems, I never had a car I liked as much as that Citroen. I wish I still had the old dog but I don’t even have a good picture of it.

Roy, that was a nice story.

It really deserves a thread of its own, I really liked it.

Man and their machines do have a special bond, don't they?

Olroy, you also are a gem and a credit to this site. We have many talented people that are willing to share with us.