Cruising Hollywood Boulevard Memories:1964 Jaguar xKE
By Richard Dryer; Photography By Rick Cooper
Bill Nieland recently drove his 1964 Jaguar XKE for the first time in more than 30 years.
The car was about 95 percent complete two years ago when Bill and his wife Maureen moved from Washington State to Panama City Beach. The first time they visited Panama City Beach was in 1996 when a friend had gifted them with a weeklong stay in a beach condominium. During their stay, the Nielands fell in love with the area and purchased a condo before returning home.
Presently Bill is semiretired and he and Maureen have permanently relocated to Panama City Beach. They look forward to driving the sports car in the warm and sunny Florida weather.
After many years of seeing the car deteriorate, Bill decided he wanted to drive it again. “I didn’t think the day would come where it would be finished. It’s that last 5 percent that a lot of people never get to,” he remarks. When he finally sat in the driver’s seat, he was transported back to his youth. Memories of cruising along Hollywood Boulevard, club hopping, and driving up and down California’s Pacific Coast Highway at sunset came flooding back. In those days, gasoline was cheap and muscle cars and sports cars were America’s pastime.
When Bill was in his early 20s, he left his home state of Washington and moved to Southern California where he spent several years working in heavy equipment sales. He checked the classified ads every day for a 1964 XKE Fixed Head Coupe. He thought he’d never find one, so he settled on a 1963 convertible roadster. He bought it for $850 and drove it to work the very next day.
“I was in the parking lot and this guy says, ‘Man I really want that car.’ I told him I really wanted the 64, and he said, ‘I’ve got one. I’ll trade you.’ So we swapped titles,” Bill says with a grin.
High performance engines, manual transmissions, wire wheels, and dual exhaust were the talk of the sports car world. Bill’s XKE had it all—including recognizable head lamp glass covers, chrome wire wheels, and the large, tilt forward engine bonnet that made it a 1960s icon.
“It was the sexiest car around,” Bill says.
After a few years, Bill got tired of the fast-paced lifestyle and moved back home to Washington. He was 27 when he married and soon had two daughters to raise. The car went up on blocks. There it sat for more than three decades.
After his girls were grown and out on their own, Bill started thinking about restoring his Jaguar. In 2007, he moved the car to a two-car garage where he began taking it apart piece by piece.
“The car was nasty,” he recalls. Mice had damaged some of the interior and had used the tailpipe for food storage. Not to mention the rust that had set in.
He worked evenings and weekends, dismantling and sand blasting parts by himself. When he started running out of room in the garage, he built a barn-type structure with more than 60 light fixtures on his property. Bill’s friend, Damien “Bud” Green helped him with much of the restoration. About halfway through, Bud’s grandmother, Diana, passed away. They nicknamed the car “Diana” in her honor.
The car body was shipped to Oregon for cleaning and acid dipping. Upon its return, the sheet metal body looked like Swiss cheese where the acid had eaten away the rusted metal. Patch panels had to be fabricated and welded in place. All body damage was straightened and primed for refinishing.
The XKE was built by Jaguar Cars Limited in Coventry, England, initially for export only before being domestically sold in England. Three XKE series were built from 1955 to 1975. They performed 0 to 60 MPH in 7.6 seconds, 15.1 seconds in the quarter mile with top speed of 150 MPH. All series have four-wheel independent suspension, rear coil springs, front torsion bar suspension, disc brakes, power rack and pinion steering, and some had air conditioning, even the open two seaters.
The XKE body style has been voted “The World’s 100 Most Beautiful Cars of All-Time.” Enzo Ferrari called the XKE “The Most Beautiful Ever Made.”
Bill recently moved the rest of his car collection to a local storage facility. He also owns a 1972 MGB, a 1978 Triumph TR 6, and a 1978 Porsche 911 SC, but he plans to make the Jaguar his daily drive. As he believes classics should be driven, he plans to take his all the way to Fairhope, Alabama, for the 2016 British Car Festival this fall.
Bill estimates that around 2,000 man-hours were required to complete the restoration of his XKE. He has never tallied up the receipts for parts and material used. The estimated value of the car is more than $120,000. “I kept all the receipts,” Bill says. “Maybe one day I’ll add them up.”