My Le Mans trip hots up
1962 Jaguar E-type FHC Owned by Phil Bell, editor, (phil.bell@bauermedia.co.uk) Time owned Seven years Latest mileage 899 Latest costs £152.78 Previously Took part in the Royal Windsor Jaguar Festival
Getting the E-type MOT tested a whole month – yes, really – before heading off to Le Mans gave me the chance to sort a few ongoing niggles, particularly the car’s reluctance to start after a week or more of inactivity. Jumping it with my 15-year-old Optima battery always gave a quick result, so I decided to treat it to a 73Ah Lincon unit (lincon.co.uk), made in a period-style rubber casing to look the part in a 55-year-old engine bay.
Wish I’d done it years ago. Come 5.15am on Le Mans Thursday I savoured the joy of a classic car firing at the first prod of the starter button. First mission was to scoop up friend Steve, whose Vauxhall VXR8 had decided to taunt him with a Christmas-lights dashboard display of MOT unfriendliness just before the trip. Seems like modern cars have the same cruel sense of humour as classics.
So, I had just three cars to meet at Portsmouth: regulars Alfa 2000 GTV and Porsche 964 Targa, and newbie Mercedes SL500. Despite the hottest temperatures in 20 Bell Le Mans trips, all of this year’s cars seemed unfazed on the A- and B-road blast to our hotel, but traffic crawl around Le Mans on the Friday brought back an almost forgotten heat-related gear selection problem. By the time we reached Maison Blanche campsite I was resorting to switching off the ignition before selecting first or reverse.
After a thrilling race that saw Aston Martin V8 Vantage driver Jonny Adam snatch GTE Pro victory on the last lap we were looking forward to the cool, air-conditioned civilisation of our Sunday night hotel as we trundled out of the campsite. And then the fuel smell hit me. As I weathered Jaguar reliability banter from the rest of the crew, I spotted that the carburettor fuel pipe banjos were leaking – the fibre gaskets don’t like modern fuel – so I nipped up the bolts and carried on. Could that be the only glitch on this year’s trip? Of course not...
Our run back to Cherbourg on the final day came closer to disaster when the acrid whiff of burning wiring suddenly filled the cabin. The sight of grey smoke billowing out of the dashboard as I veered to the roadside is one that will stay with me forever. While Steve disconnected the battery, I grabbed my fire extinguisher. By that time, though, the smoke had already stopped, and flipping down the centre dash panel revealed two scorched wires on the ignition barrel.
Steve discovered that the problem was nothing worse than one of them being loose in its spade connector. By the time he’d opened it out, cleaned it and remade the crimps we’d only lost 15 minutes, so we made the ferry check-in with 20 minutes to spare. By our standards, not even tight enough to break sweat over.