IT ALL STARTED WHEN...
New York City is one of those cities where you can live your whole life and never need a driver’s license. For George Sweeper, his family didn’t own a car and he can’t recall even being in someone else’s until he went away to college in Washington DC. Of course, he had spent some time in taxi cabs and he really enjoyed taking rides down 5th Avenue in a double decker bus with his mother. But it was a little later in life that a road trip in a girlfriend’s E-type Jaguar ignited a 47-year love affair with “the most beautiful car ever made”.
George says first and foremost that he is attracted to the lines of a car. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that the more ‘sporty’ cars he has owned have all been European. When he graduated college in Washington DC, he took the money he had from a part time job, and the monetary gifts he received from graduation, and bought a 1958 Austin Healey 100-6. In doing so, he became the first person in his family to ever own a car. That particular car was later stolen, and George used the insurance money to purchase another beautiful European car - a 1964 Austin Healey 3000.
A few years later he started dating one of his college alumni who owned a yellow E-type Jaguar. After driving it from DC to New York and then on to Vermont for a ski trip, he had to have one. He began his hunt searching the New York Times Automobile Classif ied Section. He knew that you could pick up the Sunday Edition around 8pm on a Saturday night, which gave him a 10- to 12hour head start on his competition.
After what he says “felt like a year of searching” he came across an ad for a blue, 1968, E-type Jaguar for $3000. Unfortunately, the contact phone number was missing a digit from the end. So, Saturday night he began calling through the possible combinations starting from 0. Once he got to the number 6, a gentleman answered, “Yes I do have an E-type Jaguar for sale”. The next morning and $3000 later, George had his dream car. New York is a difficult place to own a car. Space is at a premium and the first 10-12 years saw the Jag parked on the streets. Traffic, “stupid drivers” and long winters also threaten to deminish enjoyment of vehicular ownership in the Big Apple, but George says the best thing about owning his Jag in NYC is the compliments and conversations he has with perfect strangers.
On the morning of our shoot, we go down to Dumbo in the early hours to avoid the traffic and the plethora of tourists. Even with most of New York sleeping, we still had a steady stream of people stopping to takes pictures and talk to George about his car. From random passers-by, to Brooklyn Bridge Park employees, everyone loved seeing the Jag out on the cobbled stone streets of Dumbo.
It was actually here in Dumbo that I first spotted George and his Jag - the red bricks of Dumbo’s industrial buildings reflected in the deep blue metallic paint as he sped past. Luckily for me, on that day, he pulled up a little further down the road. At first, I was hesitant to approach George. He, like most people in New York City, seemed to be in a rush. But like most people in New York City, when you stop and actually chat to them, they can be very kind and giving people. I later found out that he was just popping into a store for chocolate and didn’t want to get a parking ticket, another pitfall of owning a car in NYC.
The Jag doesn’t spend all its time doing 25mph around bumpy and dilapidated city streets. George has taken it on some long road trips; from NYC to San Francisco, Vancouver, British Columbia and Mexico. Not to mention the countless vintage car races and tours and, as he cheekily admits, “just driving as fast as I can get away with."
As he gets older, perhaps the more sensible part of his brain is kicking in and he has found himself thinking about the safety, or lack thereof, in a convertible car of this vintage. Fortunately for George, once he gets behind the wheel, “…all such thoughts immediately vanish.”