Junker Jag Rescued: A Successful Aurora Restoration Raises the Burning Question, What To Do About Those Cheesy Decals?

A lot of T-Jet collectors have their opinions about old decals on old T-Jets. This guy’s YouTube channel, for instance, mentions this on occasion: I watch this channel from time to time (despite the host’s irritating propensity for repeating himself); he has a more impressive collection than I, and does some decent restorations from time to time, and he always eliminates all the old decals from his restoration projects. How do you feel about it, dear readers? And what would you think my own approach is?

As we all know, the prices on original T-Jets are outta sight these days, so when you come across a deal, it seems like a good idea to jump on it. Every enthusiast and collector will have their own tolerances, but for me, the big deal is wheel wells: I don’t like cars with cut up wheel wells, and we all know how common those are. I am more tolerant of other broken parts, since some can be repaired, and mercifully, our friend in Palm Springs has many reproduction parts available for the original cars, pricey though they may be. Its fairly rare, though, to find a “distressed” original that may be missing other parts but with wheel wells in-tact. Thus, when I found this red Jaguar for sale from a seller only a few miles away from my own address at a price that seemed quite reasonable, I decided to pop for it.

Not only were the wheel wells uncut but the A-pillars were also unbroken, another very common point of damage for these old cars. Seeing that it had an original chassis that appeared to be missing only its pick-up shoes and springs I thought it might not be too hard to piece the chassis back together. Like many of these Jaguars the rear bumper was missing completely and the front one was damaged, with one of the bumper extensions broken off, but I had a spare front bumper from an even worse car in my junkyard (with cut wheel wells, of course) and I knew I could get a repro for a rear one.

I still think it was a decent deal, but the car was more of a mess than I was expecting! The chassis was most likely original to the car but regardless, it was clearly an early version from the 60’s as it was a closed rivet with a triple-colored “X-mas tree” motor with the red, green, and gold windings. However, upon disassembly it was revealed that it was not just missing its pick-up shoes: it also had no brushes, and the field magnets, though present, were useless, as they were not a matched pair but both of the same polarity! That was weird! It did have good wheels and tires, however, which made up for the other missing parts by a fair bit, especially since my parts bin is amply stocked with original black field magnet pairs and original brushes, both brand new ones and decent used ones. Most important, the electrodes were not broken off or irreparably bent, so the chassis was savable.

As for the body: as I suspected from looking at the photos online, the front and rear screw posts were both split; the rear one wasn’t bad, but the front one definitely was! After a wash in my warm water and Tri-Sodium Phosphate solution, I saw that it needed a good polishing via my usual method, and there is a small crack in one of the side windows, but overall it cleaned up pretty well. I removed the broken front bumper/grille assembly, and then it was time to try to address that split front screw post, since it clearly would not hold a correct screw. I had only 2 of my difficult to obtain (and remarkably expensive) metal repair sleeves left, so I decided to use one here, splitting it the way I have learned to do with the dremmel to make it possible to install without causing further damage. However, even with this method, and soaking the post with oil before installing, it’s a risky proposition: there is no way to install these sleeves without pounding them into place, and doing so always carries the risk of snapping the post off entirely, or possibly causing those ugly “stress rings” in the plastic up top, which would have been especially ugly on this car, with its red body and expansive, curvaceous hood. I got ‘er done, though, with patience and-no doubt-some luck!

The front bumper was replaced with a less than perfect but still acceptable (read: unbroken) salvage piece, and then I installed the one reproduction rear bumper I had. I had bought this piece years ago with the intention of installing it on the tan version in my racing fleet, since it is missing one of its wraparound extensions, but I had never gotten around to it, and here was a perfect opportunity to get some value out of something I’d paid for that had been sitting in a box for years: how efficient!

A full cleanup on the motor via those usual methods and a good pair of original-spec field magnets and used brushes later, and I had that little old chassis running like a song! Once I knew it was going to work properly, I went about reassembling the repaired body to the rebuilt chassis, and I’m happy to say those original-style screws grabbed and held just fine! Vo-EE-la: an original, early 60’s T-Jet made whole and running again!

So by now, you’ve no doubt noticed the decals, and asked yourself why I left them on there! Well, I faced the same dilemma a while ago when I obtained another of my lucky auction wins, an excellent original tan Buick Riviera. I took the same approach with both cars, one that I understand a lot of collectors will disagree with: I decided the leave the decals.

Why?

Well, to me, I think of the decals as part of the cars’ “provenance.” That high-falutin’ word is a big deal in the collector car market these days. I admit they don’t look great-the Riv in particular doesn’t look right with racing numbers on it-but these are original Aurora decals from the early 60’s made when the cars were new, and because of that, it’s safe to assume (although yes, it is an assumption) that they were put there by the cars’ original owners. If these were decals from decades later added in the 80’s or 90’s by someone trying to spruce up or customize a car after the fact it would be a different story, but we know from looking at original decal sheets that these are the original stripes, numbers, and decorations offered by Aurora. As such, I believe them to be “era-correct” for the cars, and thus they pass muster as “provenance.” So, as cheesy as they may be, there they stay.

Here’s the thing: I can always remove them later! If I decide I don’t want them there anymore, or if I decide someday to sell these cars (God forbid!) and want to get top-dollar for them, I can go through the removal and cleanup process and return them to their stock form. But for now, I like the idea that the original owner’s customization remains in place as a mark of the history of the car: it marks them as true vintage pieces, and that history is a big part of what makes these old cars so much fun!