Volvo P1800 ES, Austin-Healey, Jaguar XKE, etc.

from my cousin Rob Macdougall of Montreal. Rob recently bought this 1973 Volvo P1800 ES on eBay and took a trip down to Virginia last week to meet his car:

"Left Montreal Monday morning on good old Air Canada--1.5 hr flight to Dulles airport outside Washington. Met Paul Warren of BCCdocs (British and Classic Car Doctors) at his house--he lives in a converted silo on the outskirts of Washington. This guy is 34 years old and was once a Ferrari and a Morgan mechanic---started his own shop 8 years ago--see www.bccdocs.com.

We drove from his house to his shop in Upperville Virginia located just 9 miles west of historic Middlebury, Virginia --full of beautiful stone houses and antique shops--not a Starbucks to be seen!! This area is home to some of the Washington elite and horsey set who have country houses in the area.

Spent most of Monday PM checking out the car. Body/undercarriage/ Interior all in excellent shape considering the car is 40 years old. Experiencing some problems with the engine running rough and was there until 9:00 PM trying to get it right.

"Booked a room at the Blackthorne Inn (see pic attached) just down the road and had a couple of Guinness and great fish and chips before hitting the sack.

"On Tuesday morning I decided to tour the area as the new parts were not expected to arrive before noon. Paul had lent me his Range Rover so I toured the beautiful country to the west of Upperville--basically the Shenandoah valley and the blue ridge mountains--understand why wars were fought over it!!  Great civil war markers and history--love that stuff.

"Returned to the shop Tuesday PM and the guys were still working hard trying to isolate the problem.  After changing many parts--distributor cap, plugs, wires and testing the fuel injection --again it was decided that the problem was the actual distributor which had some minor play in it and caused the engine to miss and idle roughly.  We got on line and ordered a new one $500 for delivery the next day.Made the decision to fly home as I had some ongoing business which had to be dealt with. After a nice seafood dinner Paul drove me to a Comfort Inn close to the Dulles airport and I was home in Montreal by 10:30 Wednesday morning. Paul has agreed to drive Zelda north to the border some time this coming week. He has a diesel truck and full trailer so will be an 7-8 hour drive for him.BTW--the pics attached are of some of Zelda's stable mates, ready for restoration or completion- Paul has over $4M of inventory sitting around his various warehouses -the typical car is a $50K project with some--the Aston Martin's maybe $500K...?"--RM