Gangster's Paradise? 1968 Jaguar Mk 2
Following on from Graham’s ’66 Mustang Coupe, this 1968 Jaguar Mk2 is it’s stable mate. Quite a contrast to the American muscle car, Mk 2’s were the choice of the discerning East End London gangster back in the 1960’s and when you take some time to really look at the car you can see why. The Devil really is in the detail (no pun intended!).
This work completes a ‘healthy’ investment of time and money into making the car into what it is today. At purchase it was sporting slightly tatty white paintwork and a vinyl interior. Knowing exactly what he wanted to achieve, Graham set about the restoration straight away, starting with the interior. Replacing the tired dark coloured vinyl seats with the sumptuous cream leather upholstered examples, the dashboard was stripped back, the wood being sanded and re-lacquered to give a rich lustre and a new bespoke luxurious carpet fitted throughout. The end result is superb and something I sadly can’t share here is the aroma. I have no idea how it was achieved, but opening the door I was met with the genuine rich aroma of a quality classic car, just like it must have been from factory fresh. It’s a scent I wish could be bottled! On this occasion I wasn’t asked to do any work on the interior, but there are some pictures at the end to show it off, including the speedo which shows an original, documented, 47681 miles.
My work was to concentrate on the exterior. The car was very recently resprayed in Graham’s choice, Ferrari Rosso Red. I know that is an issue for some purists, believing it should only be one of the original hue’s of Signal or Regency Red, but the colour suits the car so well it just works. The respray didn’t go quite according to plan, needing some remedial work to get it right. In order to prevent the original white turning the red into pink, the car was first sprayed black, then the Rosso Red laid down over that. A lack of paint in a few places meant the black showed through, but that was rectified. In typical bodyshop fashion though, the paint hadn’t been refined properly meaning it had a slightly dull hazy look. In direct sunlight a good number of swirls and holograms were evident (which is expected from a bodyshop) and a good number of sanding marks (for which there is absolutely no excuse). Graham wanted these defects removed to show the car at it’s full potential.
The car was very clean upon arrival but I gave it a quick wash to remove any dirt from the paint, and let the water act as a lubricant for the clay. Hardly any contaminants were visible on the clay afterwards, but something was removed as the paint felt noticeable smoother afterwards.
Once dried, having a look around the car with both a halogen torch, and sunlight, revealed what needed taking care of.
In the picture above to the right, you can just see a very small imperfection in the paint. These were quite numerous (although hard to photograph), but being single stage paint i.e. no clearcoat, I was confident these could be rectified. I masked off some delicate rubber seals that I didn’t want to risk impact with the polishing pad, and started the process.
In some places a more aggressive approach was required to remove some deeper random scratches and sanding marks left by the bodyshop. Where this was necessary, I then polished the area again with a very light abrasive to refine the finish perfectly.
When working on single stage paint is it normal to see the paint pigment transferred to te polishing pad, as in this photograph above. This is because there is no clearcoat (lacquer) like a lot of modern paints. If your car does have lacquer, and during polishing you started to see colour on the pad, that would be very bad news indeed!
With the polishing completed, I applied Swissvax Cleaner Fluid to the whole car. Being quite an oily product, it worked perfectly with the single stage paint to nourish it and create a beautiful deep finish to which the wax would just add to even further. As per the Mustang, Graham had chosen Swissvax Divine as a finishing product so this was carefully applied and left to cure in the sun.
Once cured, the wax was buffed to a brilliant shine and I took the opportunity to take photographs. I love the details on this car – the ‘knock on’ wheel spinners, the ‘Disc Brakes’ warning symbol set into the rear bumper (because when this car was released with disc brakes all round, it’s stopping ability was massively superior to anything else on the road!), the ‘Fogranger’ lights and the little ‘Tell Tale’ lenses on top of the sidelights, visible from inside the car to remind the driver the sidelights are on.
Testimonials
“I would definitely recommend anyone to use Shine On regardless of marque, Paul is a genuinely nice bloke who has the rare attributes of actually loving his job and doing it to the best of his ability (bordering on OCD). I personally plan to use this service at least every 8months to keep the cars looking at their best.
And to top it all off…..even my wife commented on how and I quote ‘amazing’ it looked, that testimony alone is worth its weight in gold!
Andy (M3 and Battle Bus!)”
