One step closer..

[SEJohnson95]

I thought this may be appropriate to share with you all:

Almost 4 years ago I set about saving £2 coins for my E-Type Fund and had a "Pot of Dreams" as a Christmas present. The bottom fell out the (very full) jar today because of the weight. That's £1,100 in £2 coins! (and quite a ridiculous sight it has to be said) Added to the money I saved whilst I was working at the pub up the road makes it nearly 3 grand.

It's a small amount in the scheme of things, but slowly but surely I'll make a dream a reality.

[cactusman]

Well done. Keep it up and I hope you get one.....

[mgcjag]

Get your self a few premium bonds you never know what you may earn...there are many winners each month both large and small

[SEJohnson95]

I have a few already (won 25 quid the other day) but I'm certainly going to get a few more now Steve, good idea!

[vee12eman]

Good luck Simon,
It's hard to believe now but I have owned my car for over 13 years and to be honest, back then, prices were going up fast enough that I thought I would never own an "E".

Then an unrepeatable offer came up to buy my car, your collection of coins and pub wages would have bought the car with cash to spare and although I had an enormous amount of work ahead, I was able to do this at a controlled rate and end up with the completed item I now own. Doing all the work myself (except for the engine and sunroof) means I know exactly what has been done and I understand my car better than I ever thought.

Prior to the purchase, all I really knew about the structure of the car came from Monogram model kits like the one you are building now (re-branded Revell). It was a surprisingly good help in identifying parts.

The point is not to give up, which admittedly you show no signs of doing!

All the best and I hope you get a break like I did, especially as my fantastic wife went halves with me for my 40th birthday!

Regards,

Simon

[neil4444]

Hmmmm, premium bonds. I had £30k invested in them for 5 years and was lucky if I got a few £25 wins per year. Whilst there is of course always a chance of the big win the reality for me was an appalling return. Needless to say I withdrew most of the funds - the £2k I have in there now earns me about 1 or 2 £25 wins per year.

I do admire your saving ability though !

[BRM]

Have to say, I agree with Neil. I have a similar amount invested and get £25 most months but around 1 per cent p.a. return is not great. But at least you're not throwing money down the drain on the lottery.

Simon, you seem a very determined and motivated person. Stay positive, ignore the losers who try to tell you you can't do it and never stop believing. You will get there.

[Simon P]

I once had a similar savings plan that involved stuffing fivers in lap-dancers' garter belts.

Never got me very far.....

[Tony]

Now there was Simon P's error, he should have been the lap dance not the donator. One learns with age. Keep saving and one day it will happen.

[arron]

Well done.

It all starts somewhere, and for some of use things dont come easily.

My first classic came as an eBay mistake (did not plan to bid) 15 years ago. Sensibly I could not afford the car, but I had a little cash saved from overtime and...this will raise eye brows...selling items on eBay that I had bought from Poundland. I did think about not going through with the purchase but I did and have had a great adventure and made many friends along the way.

Nice one.

Regards Arron

[Durango2k]

Now this is a true story:

I was loosely looking for a project car since 2006 around. I wanted a Series 1 (the looks...), 2+2 (Felix, plus I am tall...), and a manual one, and triple carbs, and LHD of course.

But, then, no luck. Looked on ebay, looked in the Us for the benefits of a good exchange ratio by then, and nothing.

Then I found a good dry SM in the US, bought it, sold it immediately, and had 7000 Euros. Told this to Susanne, and we needed a new kitchen so she thought that's what the cash is for.

Then !, finally, a decent project came up in late 2008- and I bought for 10.000 dollars when seeing it on ebay almost instantly directly. It was of course faaaaaar too expensive and rotten as could be, it had to be re-shelled (but Pete's book was not there so I did my very best without him :-)).

Only minor problem was I did not tell Susanne about this change of plans- and so when I talked about the E to a friend she heard it, and, well, was not that amused...

Lets say it was close to some kind of serious trouble - somehow we stuck together, I managed to raise some cash in the following years and get rid of our student's kitchen (the old one really did cost 30 Euros plus a herd from the scrappers repaired by yours truely), so thats "job done" since about 2010.

But, I could not resist....what do women know about the sirens singing the E-type melodie....

Carsten

[cactusman]

If you persist long enough the dream will come true. I wanted an E type from the age of about eight. It became a bit of a family joke over the years.....40 years later I did buy one.....I was lucky.....right place, right time, right car (for me). Proved all the doubters wrong.

So keep saving, finding a well paid job helps, don't give up and sooner or in my case a lot later the money and the car will appear. You won't regret buying one!!!

[chrisfell]

My dream started as a six year old, watching newsreel of "Britain's new export champion, Jaguar and its fast new race bred sports car, the E-Type". Cut to film (no video in those days) shot in black and white of 77RW and 9600HP being tried by journalists along a convenient stretch of motorway, the M1. I recall Sterling Moss being invovled, like when he drove 'his' E-Type (actually 9600HP, borrowed from the factory) to open London's automatic first car wash.

School, work, one marriage, three kids, several mortgages and an expensive divorce later.....

Fate and fortune combined to allow me to buy the dream car. OK it wasn't a 77RW, nor was it a 9600HP, but it was an E-Type.

13 years, almost 50,000 miles later it is in danger of becoming stuck to me. Having three children, now all grown up, means I have to plan its future. That is proving difficult on another level.

No moral story, no advice, just how it was for me.

[SEJohnson95]

Funnily enough there are some people who will laugh at me and my intentions, but everyone aims for something - even if they don't admit it. Pretty much everyone thinks it's good to have a long-term goal.

Proof is in the pudding though. Saw something on the E-Type Facebook group about a man who had been saving 20 quid a month from the age of 20 (plus clearly a bit more along the way!) and now has just finished the restoration of his 3.8 OTS.

Mind you the next purchase has to be another of those pots - this one is unlikely to be holding money again any time soon.

[Animal]

Go for it.

He who dares and all that.

Seriously, I fell in love with E Types when my friend's dad brought his boss's primrose yellow S3 FHC home for the weekend once. My mate "borrowed" the keys and we sat in it whilst he started it up and began revving it.

The soundtrack was awesome, so loud in fact that we didn't hear his incandescent dad approaching us.

Oh, how he laughed...

Poor Martin couldn't sit down for a week ! (It was the 70's).

So, that's where it began for me and, over 40 years later, it happened for me last year. Still not comfortable grounds for discussion with my wife at the moment, but, living the dream !

So, the moral of the story, ?

Dream to believe.