Hey, Gang,
Well, the Tiger Hunt is over! I am just back from a week long trip to San
Francisco where I was eventually able to drive three Tigers that were for
sale. All three were, incidentally, TAC certified vehicles. All three were
offered for sale in the 14-15K range which turned out to be, in my opinion,
very optimistic on the part of a couple of the sellers.
Oddly enough, the first Tiger I drove, a '64 260 2V, was somehow quite
charming despite being pretty rough. It needed a LOT of work, mainly
interior, body and paint, but the mechanicals were pretty straight,
understandable since the the owner is a machinist and motorcycle restorer.
The charming thing about the Tiger was that it went like hammers despite the
2V. Even though I liked the car I decided that life is too short and my
pockets are too shallow... even though the seller would probably have
entertained a fairly low offer it would have taken many, many thousands of
dollars and a couple of years (probably more than that, I am so slow nowadays)
and I decided not to make an offer.
The second car, also a '64 but with a 289 HiPo--REAL HiPo!--turned out to be
fast but pretty crude. The car looked a whole lot better in the pre-visit
photos, understandable since the owner turned out to be a used car salesman.
Very, very fast, at least in a straight line, this Tiger had about a 3:53 rear
end and had obviously been campaigned extensively. After driving and
examining--it badly needed paint and neither the wiring nor the mechanicals
were really straight--I decided it was simply too much of a job for me to be
interested. I decided not to make an offer.
I had pretty much given up hope of buying a Tiger this trip when I finally got
to see and drive the third car down on San Francisco's Embarcadero. The four-
lane surface road was not the ideal place to blast a Tiger through the gears
but it was strictly fatal attraction. The car is a '65 (first registered in
'66) 260 4V and, needless to say, also goes like the proverbial hammers. The
black paint is well aged and slightly chipped but eminently suited to driving
a couple of more years despite cracking around the aftermarket bonnet scoop.
The tan interior is fairly fresh and looks good. Best of all, the mechanicals
appear to be very good and well cared for. A brand new, professionally
installed wiring harness! Wow!
Interestingly enough, none of the three cars had a top. Since I am a
Morganist by training, experience, and inclination, I consider hoodless
driving to be the finest kind but, in this case, a top was an absolute
necessity since I was shipping the car some 1200 miles. While the car came
with a new uninstalled rag top I quickly learned it would take many days to
have it installed. The seller was most helpful in helping to find and kluge
on a fiberglas hardtop for the trip to New Mexico. Rick at Sunbeam
Specialties sold me both the used hard top and a new tonneau cover.
Anybody know of any good tech articles on installing the soft top? The
tonneau cover? I gotta have it done by an upholstery shop here in Las
Cruces...
I also need to sort out the tach, a stock Jaegger unit, which does not work.
Any suggestions for sources?
Well, at the moment the car is enroute and I can hardly wait to get it home.
Should make it just before Christmas... Finest Kind!
By-the-bye, when I arrived home last night (after the jetliner trip from Hell
which included TWO cancelled flights!) I found over 300 E-mails in my queue.
Rather than wade through all of this stuff I discarded big stacks without
opening just by looking at the subject lines. So, if you have sent me a
message recently which I fail to acknowledge, please let me know.
Particularly if the subject line of your message sounded like you wanted to
make me rich beyond my wildest dreams in a big hurry...
--Colin Cobb, Countin' Shippin' Days Outside Las Cruces, NM
'65 Tiger B9471815, TAC 270 & '66 Morgan Plus 4
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