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Daimler at Jaguar's
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Daimler at Jaguar's Quilter_1 lt icon gray gt icon

Period photo provided by John F. Quilter (shown). John was an employee of Jaguar USA, in the Brisbane Ca. office. John became the "custodian" of the blue car after the project was cancelled. John told the following anecdotal story:

I recall one year, perhaps is was 1987, when the annual 600 plus Palo Alto British Car Meet was coming in September and I took the limo to display it. Not that there were many potential buyers among the MG, Austin Healey, Land Rover, Lotus, English Ford, and Jaguar sports car owners, and enthusiasts, who routinely attended this long running popular British car event but I always liked to show off the latest or most unusual of the company products. This event was run for over 30 years by my good friend and British car enthusiast, Rick Feibusch and his wife Carolyn and a few additional friends. Carolyn and a friend operated the gate, collecting the $20 entry fee which was almost always in cash. I was always paranoid of having so much cash on hand, I mean by the end of the day it could easily have been in the range of $12,000. They assured me it was safe as they periodically hid the money under the seat of their car in a paper bag! Well, toward the end of the day the organizers and crew were tasked with cleaning up and leaving the field in good shape and free of lilter and this was done by driving around in cars and picking up any left over litter and putting it into the car. One of the helpers in this endeavor somehow mixed up the collected litter with the bag of money and it was all placed in a debris container at the entrance to the field. Some of the detritus of the day was glass containers and aluminum cans and after the park was cleared of cars and enthusiasts the resident homeless contingent descended on the park to sort out the glass bottles and aluminum cans to turn in for a deposit. It was Rick's custom to always take all the volunteer crew out to dinner at a local restaurant after the event as thanks and to discuss the cars and owners of the day. I thought that taking them all in the limo would be a classy way to go to dinner. Somewhere halfway to the restaurant Rick asked Carolyn where the bag of money was and she replied that it was in a paper bag on the floor of their car under the seat. One of the helpers then said she had discarded ALL the materials on the floor of that car into the trash receptacle after the field clean up!

Immediately the big Daimler made an abrupt U turn, and at best possible speed hastened back to the park with the hope that the marijuana influenced homeless contingent had not gone through ALL the litter yet. Arriving back at the park with Handel's Royal Fireworks blasting on the stereo, a full crew of passengers disembarked like a circus routine and began pawing through the trash container much to the total amazement of the lethargic hobos standing nearby. Soon the bag was found by one of the crew and she shouted out, waving a fistful of $20 bills in the air, "I found it, I found it!" We quickly reboarded the Daimler and were off, trailing classical music and leaving the homeless now fully alert and vigorously resorting the trash bin!

Its was sometime after this that the powers to be in Leonia said the limo should be sold. Our zone manager apparently arranged a private sale to long term friend and owner of the Jaguar dealer in Rancho Mirage, California, Peter Epstein. It was duly picked up and transported to Palm Springs and that is the last I heard of it. It would be interesting to know what became of this car. Being Palm Springs, I wonder if he ever sorted out the air conditioning system!


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