Bob Muzio’s 1963 Jaguar XK-E By Dan Kahn Bob Muzio has a secret. He spends weekdays toiling as a service manager at a Southern California Volvo dealership, helping Swedish car owners with a smile, waving politely as they drive off in their airbag-equipped safetymobiles. Nights and weekends, the gregarious family man spends time in his…
I was watching a TV program last fall with a handful of fellow Triumph owners. The episode covered some huge British car show in the Midwest. One half-hour of English automobiles—surely there would have to be an image of a sparkling TR3 or row of TR6s. But there wasn’t, not even in the corner of…
When World War II ended, Dad was 45 years old. He couldn’t drive and decided our family needed a car. Somehow, someone persuaded him that a Jaguar was just the thing for him, and a wonderful black beastie appeared outside our garage-less suburban semi-detached home. To this 14-year-old, the Jaguar SS1 was just magnificent. I think…
There has been quite a lot of recent correspondence between my headquarters here in Marina Del Rey, California, and England, Australia, and Louisiana, the subject being the XK120’s 50th Anniversary. Jeremy Broad, a Jaguar parts specialist in England, is organizing a gathering of early aluminum bodied examples for some festivities at Donington Park in June. As a…
Old British cars seek me out. Honest. The more needy they are, the more likely they are to end up on my doorstep. Old British cars find me. In the Midwest, back in my misspent youth, it seemed there was always a family who took in strays of all varieties. It was usually a family…
We are delighted to welcome Paul as a regular contributor to MossMotoring. The son of Ken Richardson, renowned Triumph competition driver, Paul has visited these shores on several occasions and we hope to welcome him back soon from his home base in England. In the meantime, enjoy his unique stories told in his inimitable style,…
When it is all said and done, and the final historians write the chapters on personal ground transportation, certain nameplates will be honored while others are forgotten. Among the elite will be Jaguar. Although there are many British nameplates that stand out within the top 10% of the world’s automakers, a vast majority of enthusiasts…
Embedded deep within my psyche is an affinity for a performance car from across the pond. Growing up in a time and place when American muscle and hot rods were the thing dreams were made of, I found a place in my heart and soul for a British invader. From an early age, the name…
Back in November of 1955, the car featured on the cover of Sports Cars Illustrated magazine was a 1939 SS100 Jaguar. The man in the driver’s seat was Dave Garroway, first host of television’s Today Show, beginning its broadcast run in 1952. He looks proud of his car, and justifiably so—only 314 of this model…
For more than 30 years, Mike Cook’s job was to publicize and promote British cars in America. From the height of the sports car craze in the late ’50s to the end of the era when Jaguar ownership passed to Ford, Cook helped create the image of the marques, generate media buzz, launch new models,…
