The year 1985 was a year of huge potential
for Jaguar in Australia. Since 1979 we had been slowly rebuilding confidence in
the marque, and improving its media image as well as slowly selling more and
more cars.
However, by mid-year it was clear that based
on our growing confidence, we had ordered far too many Jaguar XJ-S cabriolets,
and coupes.
The Board of Jaguar Rover Australia
discussed many ideas, but most appealing was to bring the Group
A Jaguar Team, run by Tom Walkinshaw, to compete in the James Hardie
1000km race at Bathurst in October.
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TWR XJ-S - Donington Park, 1984 |
Roughly half a million dollars, thank you very much!
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Tom Walkinshaw |
To compound the risk, JRA knew it needed a marketing budget to support this effort, and agreed to add another half a million dollars to the gamble!
The factory wasn’t due to ship the new XJ-S
cabriolets until late October, however in my role as Director of PR, I asked
Jaguar if it could make one car for us? If so, we would stage a glitzy launch
in the week preceding the Bathurst race.
The answer was yes, but it would be tight.
The factory was not building any LHD cars at that stage; and RHD cars were not
due offline until August 20. No problem. Plenty of time to get a car on a ship
to Australia.
So, I went ahead with plans to stage ‘The
Jaguar Ball’ at Sydney’s most glamorous hotel, the Regent on Wednesday night,
October 2. First, we needed a charity to helps us with a guest list, and some
integrity behind staging the event.
My good skiing buddies, the late Robert
Grey and his wife Beatrice were whiz-bang fundraisers for the Royal Flying
Doctor Service, and they promised to deliver us at least 100 couples from
Sydney’s social elite. We were off and running.
Our Jaguar customer database delivered a
potential 200 people, and we knew enough TV and Radio producers to get some air
time during the week before the ball. Surely that would lift Jaguar’s
visibility considerably.
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Doug Mulray and the Jaguar F-type |
The automotive and motor sport media were
going crazy with anticipation to see Europe’s winningest team Down Under, so
this was looking good.
I told the Sales & Marketing Director, John Shingleton, and Marketing Manager, Russell Turnham that it was all a no-brainer – just to sit back and watch the orders roll in after Sydney’s socialites saw the cabriolet unveiling, and our enthusiast Jaguar customers witnessed the racing Jaguars greet the chequered flag.
I told the Sales & Marketing Director, John Shingleton, and Marketing Manager, Russell Turnham that it was all a no-brainer – just to sit back and watch the orders roll in after Sydney’s socialites saw the cabriolet unveiling, and our enthusiast Jaguar customers witnessed the racing Jaguars greet the chequered flag.
What could possibly go wrong?
On August 23 I received a telex from Jaguar
saying RHD XJ-SC production was delayed by parts shortages, and the first car
would not be offline until September 20!
Many expletives later, we decided we would
grab the very first car offline, regardless of the color, and fly it to Sydney.
The Ball was scheduled for Wednesday, October 2, so we got busy booking freight
space.
However, there was a problem. A Jaguar XJ-S
was too long to fit on a single pallet – we would have to book two pallets
worth of space.
The freight bill instantly rose from AUD$1600 to AUD$3200! Not only that, for that price the car could not come on a direct one-stop flight. It would have to change planes somewhere along the way.
The freight bill instantly rose from AUD$1600 to AUD$3200! Not only that, for that price the car could not come on a direct one-stop flight. It would have to change planes somewhere along the way.
Okay, okay. We can handle all that. It’s
just administration and horse-trading over the phone between freight companies
and airlines. No problems. The chosen freight forwarder said the car would be
on the ground in Sydney on Friday, September 27, and that included flying the
car from Manchester to Hong Kong with British Airways, then Hong Kong to Sydney
with the Flying Tigers. The car was due to leave Manchester on Monday,
September 23.
At 1am in Sydney on September 24, I get a
call from Jaguar. The car missed the flight out of Manchester, so we would have
to make new arrangements! As it was office hours in Europe I immediately got on
the phone to the British office of the freight forwarder to check out the
alternatives. There were none from Manchester!
However, they could get the car on a
Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Hong Kong, to meet up with the next Flying
Tigers Jumbo. The only proviso was that the car would have to go by truck, from
Coventry to Frankfurt!!!
At this stage I felt like washing down half
a dozen Valium, with a nice single malt Scotch!
Acting on my instructions Jaguar obtained
the name of the truck driver; and he provided me with the phone numbers of his
refueling stations along the various autobahnen. I gave him explicit
instructions that the car must NOT miss the flight out of Frankfurt.
From about 6am Sydney time I stayed on the
phone, calling the numbers of the service stations overnight in Europe between
Calais and Frankfurt, every time he stopped to refuel.
“Yes, mate. Everything’s okay, the truck hasn’t broken down or caught fire and the cover is still on the car. No worries, I’ll be in Frankfurt on time.”
At the final refueling point, about one
hour from Frankfurt the phone number I was given would not answer, it just rang
out. I had no idea which fuel company the service station belonged to, so I was
completely in the dark about the car’s progress.
The car was due at the Lufthansa Freight
Depot at 8pm, for a departure to Hong Kong at 10pm.
Finally in desperation I rang the Lufthansa
freight office at 9:45pm Frankfurt time. The call was answered by a Lufthansa
manager with excellent English.
“Good
evening, I’m calling from Jaguar Cars in Sydney, Australia.I would like to know
if you have loaded a Jaguar car onto Flight LH 796.”
“One
moment, I will check.”
(Several minutes elapse – horrid Wagnerian music plays down the phone line)
“Herr
Crawford, the car was due to be loaded at 8:45pm.”
“Okay,
but was it loaded?”
Curt
reply: “Yah, of course, you are dealing with Lufthansa.”
“Will
the flight depart on time at 2210h?”
Curt
reply: “Yah, once again, I tell you, you are dealing with Lufthansa.”
“Hello,
is that Mr. Crawford? This is Flying Tigers Hong Kong, just ringing to tell you
that our flight to Sydney has departed on time and your car is safely on-board.”
Whew, that was close!
It’s Monday morning, September 30:
“Hello, is that John Crawford?”
“Hello, is that John Crawford?”
“Yes,
who is this?”
“This
is the Australian Customs Service. I believe you are expecting a Jaguar car, is
that right?”
“Well,
yes it is, but there’s a problem. Some of the freight on board with the car has
not been fumigated correctly in Hong Kong, so we are freezing all freight
movement for 12 hours.”
“This
is a disaster. The car needs to be cleared by Customs, prepped and cleaned and
on a stage at The Regent Hotel by 7:30am on Wednesday morning!”
“Sorry
mate. Them’s the rules. You can probably get your car tomorrow afternoon.”
Where’s the Valium and the Single Malt when
you need it?
The XJ-SC was finally cleared by Customs at 2am on
Wednesday, October 3 and arrived at The Regent Hotel on a truck at 7am!
'The Jaguar Ball' was a fabulous evening. We
had a 90% acceptance response to our invitations; we took about five orders for
cabriolets that night; raised thousands of dollars for the Royal Flying Doctor
Service, and on the following Sunday, the JRA-sponsored TWR Jaguar XJ-Ss
crossed the line at Bathurst in First and Third place!
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