Jaguar Club of Tulsa, Back in the Seventies, By Roger Hanes!

For me, my interest in Jaguar automobiles started back in high school with my friend Clyde Glen Hawkins. One of his first cars was a red1952 Jaguar XK-120 coupe. It was a bit rough, but I was really impressed. He didn’t have it long because one night he was drag racing on 21 st Street when he popped the clutch in second gear just as he hit the railroad tracks at the fairgrounds and broke an axle. After high school, I attended college at TU, had a stint in the US Navy, returned home to Tulsa, and got a job. My first auto purchase was a 1962 Jaguar XKE coupe. It had quite a bit of body damage to the bonnet, and the windshield leaked water on me when it rained, but wet feet or not, I was driving an XKE! I had some high school VOTEC types effect some repairs on the bonnet, and spray it back to a fawn color. The car did not last that long because it caught fire one night after a night out with my father. As parts back then were hard to come by, State Farm totaled it.

There was nothing to do but replace it with my 1963 baby blue XKE coupe. This was in the spring of 1972, and about the time that Ken Sykes recruited me into the club. While I was not a founding member of the club, I was definitely an early member. The guys, including me, Doc Abel, Tom Dewitt, and Larry West would meet over at Herb Grossman’s garage, North and East of 11 th and I-44 on Saturdays to work out our Jaguar problems. Back then, being a member of the Club was a matter of self defense, as we had no internet, or reliable Haynes manuals, or reliable part sources to keep the Jags moving. If your Jag had a problem it was likely that someone else had maybe already had that same problem and they could help you out with an inexpensive fix.

All through the early seventies, I kept moving up my Jaguars ownerships to more recent models of XKE coupes. I think that in all, I had seven at one time or another, with only owning one at a time. With my Jaguar always being my daily driver. I discovered that the car top carrier designed for a VW bug also perfectly fit the top of my Jaguars.

I used my XKEs for everything from carrying luggage, ladders, just everything. I even took them deer hunting in the Ozarks. Anyway, after Cindy and I were married, and had our sons Rog and Travis, I discovered that while we could get one child safety seat into the back seat of my 1971 XKE coupe, there was absolutely no way of getting a second child safety seat as well.

From there, we attempted to stay true to Jaguars by purchasing a 1960’s Mark II sedan. While Cindy truly adored that car’s design, I had made the mistake of purchasing a vehicle that had been put back together with plenty of deteriorating bondo.

After having had so much fun with my XKEs, it did not take many years for my interest in the sedan to wane, and our sons were getting older, so it was off to Cub Scouts and other interests for me for the next couple of decades.

It was only after my recovery from a quadruple bypass in 2004 that I decided it was time for me to return to my roots. Where upon, I soon purchased a 1969 XKE coupe on Ebay. I then sent my son, Travis and his old Boy Scout buddy, Larry Panther to Florida to bring it home on acar hauler. It was a Jaguar in need of some serious attention, but that is a story for another day..