What I find utterly compelling about these cars is how unbelievably cantankerous those huge old engines were (I simply cannot imagine flying an aircraft powered by such unreliable, by modern standards, engines). Yet, when they run, they produce so much torque that they’ll strip the teeth off the gears in the most durable gearboxes. I imagine, if you know what you’re doing, running one of these big engines must be frustrating and rewarding in equally huge measure. Certainly, they won’t leave you feeling indifferent!
Back in the mid 1970’s I drove with a colleague to Capel Curig in North Wales to buy a Jaguar XK150S and drove up a farm lane to a large barn full of beautiful classic vehicles. The seller was Owen Wyn Owen who then proceeded to show us a project he was working on restoring Babs amongst his many other projects. The cylinder heads were off and the exposed cylinders were the size of flower pots. At the time he was trying to recover a similar liberty engine from a swamp in Florida for spare parts. Not bad for a lecturer at Bangor University!!
