Year End Review

David with a Morgan

Hunter-Gatherer

Although we are officialy celebrating the waning days of 2013 by taking Christmas week off, Patrick is actually out in the shop assembling an E-type Independant Rear Suspension  unit.  Some people love what they do, which is why we’ve been doing this for the last 25 years or so, and on Monday the lights will be on and the phone ringing (O.K. they’re ringing right now) and it will be business as usual, working with the usual retinue of interesting stuff.

Butch under the hood of a Jaguar Mk9

Butch with a Mark IX Jaguar

This was one of my favorite pictures of the past year, Butch under the hood of a big Jaguar Mark IX sedan installing a set of tappet guide hold downs on the exhaust side.  This is a repair more commonly undertaken while the cylinder head is in the machine shop for a valve job, but it’s what the customer said he wanted, so we did it.

In fact we did  a huge amount of service work on this car with a dollar value that far exceeded the cost of the best Mark IX

Patrick buttons up an E-type after a TX overhauil

Patrick buttons up an E-type after a gearbox overhaul

on the block, but in the end the owner still wasn’t happy, although we do wish him success in his new sales and repair venture.

In this house we try to stay as far away from the sales side of the business as we can, because we think there’s a fundamental conflict of interest between making the best repairs you can and getting the best price for a car you can.  We fix those cars all the time, including, recently, one from Candia, N.H.

An Elva courrier on test

Chris puts the hammer down in an Elva Courrier

When a crummy set of County brand pistons with too much oil control  blew up the engine in this Elva Courrier, Chris pieced another one together from our collection of servicable used parts, and on test it actually exceeded our performance expectations.  While we had intended it as a stop-gap until we could build up a proper uprated engine for the car, the owner pronounced himself entirely satisfied, which goes to show that perception is still reality.

John Manning workng on a TR3

John took a new job in early December

Every year has its comings and goings.  John took a new job earlier this month in a general repair shop in Springfield, Massachusetts, more or less around the corner from Bay State Medical Center, where his girlfriend is an R.N.  Not enough young people have John’s work ethic: Show up on time, work a full day, widen your skill set and enjoy your work.  Of course not enough veteran workers have that kind of work ethic, either, but if you think you are one, or know somebody who is, we’d like to talk…

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