Magnolia Special - Jay Leno's Garage

**Article: The Magnolia Special: A Natural Gas-Powered Masterpiece**

Welcome to another episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, where we celebrate homebuilt vehicles and American ingenuity. In this episode, we meet JT Nesbitt, a designer known for his work with Confederate Motorcycles, who shares his latest creation: the Magnolia Special. This car is not just unique; it runs entirely on natural gas and has an impressive 600-mile range.

**JT Nesbitt’s Introduction**

JT joins Jay Leno in his garage, dressed sharply as a promise to his mom. JT, a Southern boy from New Orleans, shares how the Magnolia Special came about after Hurricane Katrina. He found solace in watching Jay Leno’s Garage and was inspired by Jay’s segment on Honda Civic CNG vehicles. JT took that challenge seriously and built the Magnolia Special.

**The Design of The Magnolia Special**

The Magnolia Special is a stunning blend of classic and modern design. It pays homage to 1930s grand prix cars, featuring hand-formed aluminum panels and a lightweight frame. JT’s design philosophy emphasizes curves over sharp angles, reflecting his belief in the beauty of handmade craftsmanship. He even built his own casting foundry to create custom parts, a skill he jokingly compares to ancient Egyptian technology.

**Construction Details**

The car’s construction is a labor of love, with every part meticulously crafted by JT. The body panels are held together by torque screws, not bolts, and the interior features hand-stitched leather touches. JT designed everything from the suspension system, which draws inspiration from 1950s indy cars, to the engine cooling system. He even custom-built a scale model to plan out proportions.

**Natural Gas Power**

One of the car’s standout features is its natural gas powertrain. The Magnolia Special runs on compressed natural gas (CNG), with five tanks strategically placed for optimal weight distribution. JT highlights the environmental benefits, noting that the emissions are cleaner than cooking gas. He also mentions that natural gas is abundant and cheaper than gasoline.

**Cross-Country Trip**

JT and his navigator, Maxwell Murn, drove the Magnolia Special from New York to Los Angeles in 89 hours, a record he hopes others will break. The trip tested their planning skills as they navigated an obstacle with a closed fuel station, forcing them to reroute. Despite challenges, JT praises the infrastructure supporting natural gas vehicles.

**Technical Aspects**

Under the hood is a modified Jaguar 4.2-liter engine, converted for CNG use. This involves raising compression ratios and timing adjustments, but no other major modifications are needed as internal combustion engines inherently run on natural gas. The car’s suspension, featuring four-wheel disc brakes, was built to handle long trips comfortably.

**Performance and Efficiency**

The Magnolia Special achieves between 30-35 MPG equivalent, proving that efficiency doesn’t come at the cost of power. JT notes that oil changes are less frequent due to cleaner combustion, but he plans to inspect the engine upon return. The car’s handling is praised, with a smooth ride despite its classic design.

**Inspiration and Future**

JT’s project is more than just a car; it symbolizes American innovation and sustainability. He hopes his creation encourages others to explore alternative fuels while preserving traditional hot-rodding values. For those interested in JT’s work, visit his website at bvillestudios.com for updates and details.

**Conclusion**

The Magnolia Special showcases the potential of natural gas vehicles and highlights the creativity of garage innovators like JT Nesbitt. By blending classic design with modern technology, JT has created a car that’s both a joy to drive and environmentally responsible. Stay tuned for more episodes where Jay Leno explores the fascinating world of homebuilt cars.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome another episode of Jay Leno's Garage you know we love uh homebuilt stuff here we like American enginuity you know a lot of you guys are sitting home watching TV playing video games there are guys in the garage actually building stuff and this is a classic example of that and this car has a very unique feature that we're going to show you rather in just a few minutes but let's meet the designer JT nesb JT come on in here now JT this is hilarious to me tell us why you're dressed up today well uh I promised my mom that if I was able to get on jayen his garage I wouldn't look like a bomb that's a good Southern boy he's from New Orleans and you drove this car from New York to LA and we're going to tell you what makes that different from some of the other cars that get driven cross country in just a minute but first I want to get into the design it's called The Magnolia special beautiful car now we met before you were the uh designer for confederate motorcycles correct yeah long time ago long time ago okay and uh this kind of came out of the depths of Katrina didn't it this car uh yeah uh you know uh after U after Katrina there was I lost everything yeah and um one of the things that really kept me going was Jay Leno's Garage well I don't know about well no I'm serious and and about three years ago you did a spot on the Honda Civic CNG right and you asked a very important question you know I've been a big fan in natural gas and I don't know why it's not considered sexier I took that as a challenge yeah and uh here's the results well that's the secret this car was driven from New York to uh Los Angeles here on natural gas you fill it up you run it as a natural gas car yeah and it is amazing to me we're all into this lithium ion battery thing and we have something like what 600 years worth of natural gas in the ground right here tons of it tons of it I know tbun Pickins I had them on my Tonight Show and we talked about that and uh I know that CG Honda which I thought was fantastic it came out to about 75 cents a gallon they had a home fueling system and that company went out of business so I don't know why more people aren't doing natural gas and the fact that hot roders are incorporating alternative technology I think that's fantastic because this car will pass emissions uh I mean you can put your hand on that tailpipe there's no carbon there's no well what what what comes out of the tailpipe is about the same as what uh comes when you cook your food I mean the emissions are basically the same as cooking a food on your stove yeah that's fantastic now tell us about the design of the car itself what what made you build it this way what did you start with give us a whole deal well well the morphology of it is is fairly uh simple uh it's a function of its construction technique uh if you've ever noticed cars that are handmade and built by individuals they all kind of look a certain way right and cars that are built in factories kind of look a a different way right uh it's an is it an homage to the gr pre cars of the 30s absolutely yeah but it's also just the easiest way to connect the dots well to me I always like hand form stuff because there are curves you know modern cars are so angular because everything's done on a computer but when you're sitting there pounding on a wheel and forming a fender it's going to have a curve like this you know I mean an example of The Other Extreme would be I think the like the new uh Cadillacs the cts-vs and that love I love it too very angular but I also like a hand formed Fender I like the I like the curve uh this is a great design well tell us how you came up with this well what I did is I built a little casting Foundry uh and to cast all my own parts and uh I also uh fabricated all everything else so uh you know people get real freaked out that I am casting My Own Parts but I mean it's a technology that's only about 5,000 years old you know I mean if the ancient Egyptians were doing it how hard can it be that's right exactly yeah but look what happened to them you know so yeah you don't want to wind up in a pyramid and the other thing is uh man guys were building cars like similar to this 100 years ago right so again how hard can it be well it has a well I think you're underestimating yourself because it is very hard there are people to me I can't draw a curve I know guys can draw a French curve and go like this you know you just so I have great respect for guys like you that can make something like this well the process started about two years ago uh and a little bit before that after your CG episode I I built a scale model to figure out the proportional relationships of off the tank off-the-shelf tanks right uh that was very helpful in the construction and to figure out how I wanted it to look and uh that scale model really helped a lot so tell us uh now we have we have some footage we have some uh some build footage of your car right yeah uh the the whole log of the buildout it's just snapshots right is on my website which is bville studios.com okay spell that out that's b i n v l l studios.com very cool now these are your excuse me these are your natural gas tanks on each side here yeah I've got five tanks total I've got two primaries one on either side Between the Wheels and then three more one under each uh seat and then one behind the rear differential so how many miles can you go on gas natural gas uh this is a 600 mile range car 600 mile range okay great and obviously as you said cross country did you call ahead and find places we yeah actually that's going cross country and doing this whole trip uh one of the things that are critical is the navigation right and I'd like to introduce uh my navigator and and co- conspirator this is Maxwell murn hey Max how you doing pretty good yeah most of the trip uh I had to plan out in advance for the entire thing uh what happened at one point was that uh a station that I called the head to wasn't able to accommodate us and and uh we actually had to change the entire route of the trip so it was kind of on the Fly we had to go around so we went uh we zigzagged across the country but made our longest track was about 467 miles but the great thing is the infrastructure is already there for natur it is and that's our point we proved yeah cuz I remember when I was a kid and the Mercedes diesel came out in the fif in the 50s the 190s they would give you a big book like this thick of every diesel station in the United States so you could figure out cuz it was hard to get the time you had to go out the truck stops a lot of truck stops wouldn't put it in the car whatever it was so they they had designated areas much like natural gas is now I mean I see electric vehicles and no one's driven one of those cross country yet at least in an hasn't taken a couple weeks well that's well that's that's our challenge yeah right uh we we did our trip in 89 hours flat right and I want that record to be broken immediately because it lifts all boats right exactly but I mean for electric cars the infrastructure is not there yet for gas cars it is somewhat isn't it and how much is the equivalent gallon per se for uh it ranges anywhere from a120 a gallon to $260 c a gallon okay but it's still uh yeah still cheap dirt cheap in comparison and and it's all domestic it's 100% domestic and locally produced right now tell us about those Wheels those are nice Wheels those yeah I had Dayton make those up for me those are the 72 spoke uh 5 in rim and those are Corky coker's uh tires yeah Corky does he does all of our tires too he's he's the best guy for that Bo I love those tires and I recognize those uh those Wheels as well they do a good job CU you don't want to fool around with Old Wire Wheels that's right right well they're not that strong those are 72 well they look you can see the thickness of the is is pretty good let's look under the hood and show what the end you might be surprised to what the engine is well that looks like a 4.2 Jag is that correct ah you are correct sir yeah there you are well that's one of the great Motors of all time of course uh first scen in the xk120 and the 140 150 the XK this was the main stay this would be the equivalent of the small block Chevy in England well it only won Lama like five times exactly exactly one of the great Motors of all time and you've converted it to run a natural gas now obviously tell us what you had to do I don't recognize this here this is for cooling what is that well you don't have to really convert a motor to run on natural gas any internal combustion engine will run on it right but natural gas has an octane equivalent of 130 and if you want to take advantage of the characteristics of that fuel uh raising the compression ratio we're 12 and 1 half to one wow uh cam shafts this is a very short duration high lift torque Cam and uh timing Advance we're running 50° Advanced on this motor okay so natural gas is an incredibly stable fuel now how about valve recession that type with lubricating the valves and all uh you know uh it seems to be running okay last time I checked uh po the valve the exhaust valve cover off the intakes were fine and checked the clearances and they had tightened up a little bit MH but uh as soon as I get home I'm going to take the head off and really have a look at it I think it's okay because it's no lead seats the fuel is dry however it seems to be working just fine oh very good very good look at the come around here look at the beautiful job they did on the suspension there uh this is a the open ride suspension it's a push rod type suspension basically indie car suspension from the 50s right right very nicely done four-wheel disc brakes obviously yeah lighting and braking uh I made some Modern concessions right right and uh do you do the do you make these headers yes sir sure boy beautiful job look at the nice well done that and all the little detail work here yeah those are all cast uh by me in my shop very nicely done this door opens how lift up gently look at that I mean nicely done look at the hinges here and the way this opens okay you don't want to be Britany getting in this thing in the skirt but nicely done ergonomics were was a was a big deal for me because I love those Grand Prix cars from the 30s but they're horrible things to get in and out of yeah especially what are you six4 yeah so I built this car from for me to scale you know the the cowling is very long here the seat goes way far back I built it to be a comfortable car and what is the transmission it's a trim T5 okay uh with very special bell housing now that's a great fit for this motor isn't it I've got wonderful I've got one of those in my xk120 I've had it in there for almost 25 years and it's a fantastic transmission JT take us through the gauges here show us what we have all right well uh this is obviously oil pressure right this is water temp speedometer Tac right clock uh this is our volt meter this is our fuel tank status fuel gauge and uh that Rascal right there is air fuel ratio okay we have a wideband O2 sensor on the car so we can see what our air fuel ratio is oh very good now one thing that you're going to like is none of these gauges are are listed you know like this doesn't say you know speed this doesn't say RPM because when I was designing the gauges uh I had the clock I mean do you have to say uh time on the clock yeah I know exactly you should know what it is well that's you know that's what's kind of fun about the old Italian cars when I get in my mirors they got all these overhead switches none of them are Mark and the idea is you're supposed to know but every day I what was this one again oh that's right I for what is this here our switches are actually under this piece of leather these are all touchpad switches oh I see for the horn starter left right turn signal and and the reason why it is that way is that I wanted the car to have a very good hand so that everything you touched was handmade you didn't touch any nasty plastic made in China switches Everything is Everything has a certain feel to it kind of looks like one of those Zeppelin airships I like that sort of super leera construction yeah super leera constru construction which of course means extra lightweight and where does the name Magnolia special come from uh you know when I was working on this car I I couldn't help but think about my grandmother oh okay and what she would think would be uh would be would be a beautiful car oh okay and we're from Louisiana you know Magnolia are makes de dear to us yeah yeah and that nice leather look at the leather inlay here this is what I love you know a lot of guys like me I just want to drive the thing all right let's get a steering wheel put let's go but to spend all this time all this detail work this is what really makes it beautiful nicely done and uh that's kind of the motorcycle influence working with the leather there isn't it yeah motorcycle guys are so detail oriented you know well that's CUA a motorcycle wears its engine on the outside you know you know it's hard to design motorcycle engines cuz they got to look good you know I love my Triumph triple but it's not a pretty looking motor looks like a Ferguson tractor yeah Harley's a good looking motor Vincent's a good looking motor you guys do the Confederate motor is very nice SNS but that big three-cylinder L it just looks like a tractor it looks East German yeah yeah it does it does has that eural kind of feel to it you know it's really hard to make an engine goodlooking that's that's really trick about the jagar 4.2 such a magnificent looking thing it's a beautiful looking motor as well and of course Very Advanced for its time but just look at all the detail here these little these looks like rivets but they're not they're torque screws yeah yeah so the whole all the body panels are actually unscrew you don't have to cut anything apart oh very nice no trouble with these rattling loose or anything on the trip I know they they all held up pretty good yeah very good not going to be taking a trip with the wife with this well here I'll show you the trunk if you'd like to see the trunk so I made this piece of luggage here and then this lifts off yeah I see open it up oh I see there you go I didn't realize that was there so you got your jack in there and the well is this battery under here yes sir boy nicely done and everything fits so well so and now this obviously looks like a fuel cap but you got a quick quick I mean it I mean it looks like a gas cap and you got a quick connector on here and how long does it take to fill up with uh natural gas about 10 minutes yeah it's not terribly long there's also different styles of fill there's the Quick Fill that's usually at the stations that you drive to and then you can also if you had one installed in your house usually that's going to be a slow fill so you're talking about I see yeah yeah overnight and it's just again it's the same natural gas for your dryer or your stove yeah it actually smells like a hot water heater when you're driving it you can smell it you know yeah yeah and that's the nice thing about it is you have an natural gas car you can refill it at home put it in at night and do a slow fill 3 4 hours something like well the the the there are several companies out there now working on home filling stations right that that uh are remarkable I know one set of guys is working on one that does a dump of 10 gge 10 gon dump and then a trickle fill I see so if you just need 10 gallons boom you can get it like that wow very nice and what is the mixture of natural gas to air uh the air fuel ratios can be many things you can run all the way from from 10 to one to 18 to1 it depends on how much efficiency you're looking for now gasoline and air is what it 14 14.7 14.7 okay what would this be average uh well well again it depends on on on what how much power you want to make it's just like your stove when you want your stove to get hotter you just turn it you just turn the knob up right gotcha gotcha very cool nicely done nicely done and just uh just spend some time in the details the engine turned firewall this is your oil filter right here and I imagine with uh natural gas your oil stays a lot cleaner doesn't it yeah uh oil changes are every 10,000 miles wow okay so you use a lot it's a lot easier on the oil because it doesn't have any of the any of the soot going down into like when you pull a spark plug out that Rascal is clean right right and how many how many miles have you done on this particular car uh we're over 5,000 mil on it now and uh no major mechanical failures after 5,000 miles in the front end here as you can see his uh natural gift as a designer that's a great looking look here nicely done kind of looks like the front of my uh 34 dusenberg it's got this the same kind of much closer together but nicely these veins actually channel the air into the into the radiator and man our cooling system is like I said it's it's overly efficient well you know the early ones like my Packard and stuff those veins would turn when you thermostat until they freeze up and then they get stuck somewhere until they rust or something but when they left the factory they would open and close but this is nicely done I like that sort of fish mouth look to it there that's kind of cool and these headlights what those Hollow obviously uhen yeah they're a hogen all in one housing turn highs and lows yeah very nice anybody any cops stopped you going hey what is that did you get any of that not one not not one encounter with the police um and not one truly bad thing happened to us on the trip uh except that at one point the gate was shut on one of the fuel stations it was listed as 24 hours yeah uh it was 4:00 a.m. in the morning in North Carolina and we had to start a campfire to keep from freezing to death very H Nelson Jackson yeah yeah very nice very nice and look at this little detail here these look like little Pistons these caps on your yeah those are uh the reservoirs R reservoirs that's all motorcycle components actually a lot of what we uh what we did and used was all motorcycle stuff since we're both bike guys and what is that steering uh unit uh it's a rack and pinion right I mean is that an aftermarket or is it off a car oh it's an aftermarket just a aftermarket rack and pinion you could either run power steering or not have power steering I see it definitely does not need power steering now you guys took pictures along the way are you on Facebook yeah how can they follow if they want to see what the trip was like yeah you can follow it at facebook.com/ bville studios Okay very cool I just love this kind of American Ingenuity this is what people do when they're not playing video games and all that other nonsense you got time to spend in your garage building cool stuff it's just a wonderful wonderful car let's take it for a SP although it's geared very tall still has plenty of power what do you thinkig you're getting miles per gallon equivalent uh I actually we've done a couple of calculations that yield uh between 30 and 35 MPG wow that's pretty good and you could make it if if you didn't want to put a 411 in it you get some real power out of it couldn't you there you go it's got that great Jag sound I need a power nice thing is it's a good looking car as well you can see JT has a what a fine arts degree Fine Arts degree see he's got a real designer's eye boy it steers wonderfully it is kind of cool having a car you can just fill up in your garage you got a water heater or a gas dryer you could run this right out of your garage never go to a gas station again did you get it hot at all coming across country no it stayed right at about 180 yeah so you never got it to 220 couple of times so man yesterday driving it on the 4:05 at 4:00 on Friday afternoon yeah Bumble a bump R if it was going to break it would have done it yesterday yeah yeah you know she's geared so tall you can run a third gear all day at what 60 M hour you're only turnning 2500 rpm and it handles wonderfully I know you say it's 2700 lb but it feels like it weighs about 1,700 lb and how much does natural gas way not much yeah me if it was gasoline you'd be put an extra what 200 lb in the car right yeah yeah good brakes too see that so you can be a hot Roder and uh be an alternative fuel guy and be an engineer and a designer and dressed up to please your mom and do the whole bit so uh JT thanks a lot hey you're very been a real thrill if you'd like to know more about his website give it to him again uh the website is bville studios.com bville studios.com well good to see American hot roding going to the next level and I love the fact that you're running on natural gas this is a real wellth thought out intelligent product so congratulations my friend thank you see you guys next week I'm not doing a burnout cuz it's his car and he's got a Too Tall I tell you it won't do a burnout but when you put those 41s in it bring it back then we'll do a burnout see you next weekwelcome another episode of Jay Leno's Garage you know we love uh homebuilt stuff here we like American enginuity you know a lot of you guys are sitting home watching TV playing video games there are guys in the garage actually building stuff and this is a classic example of that and this car has a very unique feature that we're going to show you rather in just a few minutes but let's meet the designer JT nesb JT come on in here now JT this is hilarious to me tell us why you're dressed up today well uh I promised my mom that if I was able to get on jayen his garage I wouldn't look like a bomb that's a good Southern boy he's from New Orleans and you drove this car from New York to LA and we're going to tell you what makes that different from some of the other cars that get driven cross country in just a minute but first I want to get into the design it's called The Magnolia special beautiful car now we met before you were the uh designer for confederate motorcycles correct yeah long time ago long time ago okay and uh this kind of came out of the depths of Katrina didn't it this car uh yeah uh you know uh after U after Katrina there was I lost everything yeah and um one of the things that really kept me going was Jay Leno's Garage well I don't know about well no I'm serious and and about three years ago you did a spot on the Honda Civic CNG right and you asked a very important question you know I've been a big fan in natural gas and I don't know why it's not considered sexier I took that as a challenge yeah and uh here's the results well that's the secret this car was driven from New York to uh Los Angeles here on natural gas you fill it up you run it as a natural gas car yeah and it is amazing to me we're all into this lithium ion battery thing and we have something like what 600 years worth of natural gas in the ground right here tons of it tons of it I know tbun Pickins I had them on my Tonight Show and we talked about that and uh I know that CG Honda which I thought was fantastic it came out to about 75 cents a gallon they had a home fueling system and that company went out of business so I don't know why more people aren't doing natural gas and the fact that hot roders are incorporating alternative technology I think that's fantastic because this car will pass emissions uh I mean you can put your hand on that tailpipe there's no carbon there's no well what what what comes out of the tailpipe is about the same as what uh comes when you cook your food I mean the emissions are basically the same as cooking a food on your stove yeah that's fantastic now tell us about the design of the car itself what what made you build it this way what did you start with give us a whole deal well well the morphology of it is is fairly uh simple uh it's a function of its construction technique uh if you've ever noticed cars that are handmade and built by individuals they all kind of look a certain way right and cars that are built in factories kind of look a a different way right uh it's an is it an homage to the gr pre cars of the 30s absolutely yeah but it's also just the easiest way to connect the dots well to me I always like hand form stuff because there are curves you know modern cars are so angular because everything's done on a computer but when you're sitting there pounding on a wheel and forming a fender it's going to have a curve like this you know I mean an example of The Other Extreme would be I think the like the new uh Cadillacs the cts-vs and that love I love it too very angular but I also like a hand formed Fender I like the I like the curve uh this is a great design well tell us how you came up with this well what I did is I built a little casting Foundry uh and to cast all my own parts and uh I also uh fabricated all everything else so uh you know people get real freaked out that I am casting My Own Parts but I mean it's a technology that's only about 5,000 years old you know I mean if the ancient Egyptians were doing it how hard can it be that's right exactly yeah but look what happened to them you know so yeah you don't want to wind up in a pyramid and the other thing is uh man guys were building cars like similar to this 100 years ago right so again how hard can it be well it has a well I think you're underestimating yourself because it is very hard there are people to me I can't draw a curve I know guys can draw a French curve and go like this you know you just so I have great respect for guys like you that can make something like this well the process started about two years ago uh and a little bit before that after your CG episode I I built a scale model to figure out the proportional relationships of off the tank off-the-shelf tanks right uh that was very helpful in the construction and to figure out how I wanted it to look and uh that scale model really helped a lot so tell us uh now we have we have some footage we have some uh some build footage of your car right yeah uh the the whole log of the buildout it's just snapshots right is on my website which is bville studios.com okay spell that out that's b i n v l l studios.com very cool now these are your excuse me these are your natural gas tanks on each side here yeah I've got five tanks total I've got two primaries one on either side Between the Wheels and then three more one under each uh seat and then one behind the rear differential so how many miles can you go on gas natural gas uh this is a 600 mile range car 600 mile range okay great and obviously as you said cross country did you call ahead and find places we yeah actually that's going cross country and doing this whole trip uh one of the things that are critical is the navigation right and I'd like to introduce uh my navigator and and co- conspirator this is Maxwell murn hey Max how you doing pretty good yeah most of the trip uh I had to plan out in advance for the entire thing uh what happened at one point was that uh a station that I called the head to wasn't able to accommodate us and and uh we actually had to change the entire route of the trip so it was kind of on the Fly we had to go around so we went uh we zigzagged across the country but made our longest track was about 467 miles but the great thing is the infrastructure is already there for natur it is and that's our point we proved yeah cuz I remember when I was a kid and the Mercedes diesel came out in the fif in the 50s the 190s they would give you a big book like this thick of every diesel station in the United States so you could figure out cuz it was hard to get the time you had to go out the truck stops a lot of truck stops wouldn't put it in the car whatever it was so they they had designated areas much like natural gas is now I mean I see electric vehicles and no one's driven one of those cross country yet at least in an hasn't taken a couple weeks well that's well that's that's our challenge yeah right uh we we did our trip in 89 hours flat right and I want that record to be broken immediately because it lifts all boats right exactly but I mean for electric cars the infrastructure is not there yet for gas cars it is somewhat isn't it and how much is the equivalent gallon per se for uh it ranges anywhere from a120 a gallon to $260 c a gallon okay but it's still uh yeah still cheap dirt cheap in comparison and and it's all domestic it's 100% domestic and locally produced right now tell us about those Wheels those are nice Wheels those yeah I had Dayton make those up for me those are the 72 spoke uh 5 in rim and those are Corky coker's uh tires yeah Corky does he does all of our tires too he's he's the best guy for that Bo I love those tires and I recognize those uh those Wheels as well they do a good job CU you don't want to fool around with Old Wire Wheels that's right right well they're not that strong those are 72 well they look you can see the thickness of the is is pretty good let's look under the hood and show what the end you might be surprised to what the engine is well that looks like a 4.2 Jag is that correct ah you are correct sir yeah there you are well that's one of the great Motors of all time of course uh first scen in the xk120 and the 140 150 the XK this was the main stay this would be the equivalent of the small block Chevy in England well it only won Lama like five times exactly exactly one of the great Motors of all time and you've converted it to run a natural gas now obviously tell us what you had to do I don't recognize this here this is for cooling what is that well you don't have to really convert a motor to run on natural gas any internal combustion engine will run on it right but natural gas has an octane equivalent of 130 and if you want to take advantage of the characteristics of that fuel uh raising the compression ratio we're 12 and 1 half to one wow uh cam shafts this is a very short duration high lift torque Cam and uh timing Advance we're running 50° Advanced on this motor okay so natural gas is an incredibly stable fuel now how about valve recession that type with lubricating the valves and all uh you know uh it seems to be running okay last time I checked uh po the valve the exhaust valve cover off the intakes were fine and checked the clearances and they had tightened up a little bit MH but uh as soon as I get home I'm going to take the head off and really have a look at it I think it's okay because it's no lead seats the fuel is dry however it seems to be working just fine oh very good very good look at the come around here look at the beautiful job they did on the suspension there uh this is a the open ride suspension it's a push rod type suspension basically indie car suspension from the 50s right right very nicely done four-wheel disc brakes obviously yeah lighting and braking uh I made some Modern concessions right right and uh do you do the do you make these headers yes sir sure boy beautiful job look at the nice well done that and all the little detail work here yeah those are all cast uh by me in my shop very nicely done this door opens how lift up gently look at that I mean nicely done look at the hinges here and the way this opens okay you don't want to be Britany getting in this thing in the skirt but nicely done ergonomics were was a was a big deal for me because I love those Grand Prix cars from the 30s but they're horrible things to get in and out of yeah especially what are you six4 yeah so I built this car from for me to scale you know the the cowling is very long here the seat goes way far back I built it to be a comfortable car and what is the transmission it's a trim T5 okay uh with very special bell housing now that's a great fit for this motor isn't it I've got wonderful I've got one of those in my xk120 I've had it in there for almost 25 years and it's a fantastic transmission JT take us through the gauges here show us what we have all right well uh this is obviously oil pressure right this is water temp speedometer Tac right clock uh this is our volt meter this is our fuel tank status fuel gauge and uh that Rascal right there is air fuel ratio okay we have a wideband O2 sensor on the car so we can see what our air fuel ratio is oh very good now one thing that you're going to like is none of these gauges are are listed you know like this doesn't say you know speed this doesn't say RPM because when I was designing the gauges uh I had the clock I mean do you have to say uh time on the clock yeah I know exactly you should know what it is well that's you know that's what's kind of fun about the old Italian cars when I get in my mirors they got all these overhead switches none of them are Mark and the idea is you're supposed to know but every day I what was this one again oh that's right I for what is this here our switches are actually under this piece of leather these are all touchpad switches oh I see for the horn starter left right turn signal and and the reason why it is that way is that I wanted the car to have a very good hand so that everything you touched was handmade you didn't touch any nasty plastic made in China switches Everything is Everything has a certain feel to it kind of looks like one of those Zeppelin airships I like that sort of super leera construction yeah super leera constru construction which of course means extra lightweight and where does the name Magnolia special come from uh you know when I was working on this car I I couldn't help but think about my grandmother oh okay and what she would think would be uh would be would be a beautiful car oh okay and we're from Louisiana you know Magnolia are makes de dear to us yeah yeah and that nice leather look at the leather inlay here this is what I love you know a lot of guys like me I just want to drive the thing all right let's get a steering wheel put let's go but to spend all this time all this detail work this is what really makes it beautiful nicely done and uh that's kind of the motorcycle influence working with the leather there isn't it yeah motorcycle guys are so detail oriented you know well that's CUA a motorcycle wears its engine on the outside you know you know it's hard to design motorcycle engines cuz they got to look good you know I love my Triumph triple but it's not a pretty looking motor looks like a Ferguson tractor yeah Harley's a good looking motor Vincent's a good looking motor you guys do the Confederate motor is very nice SNS but that big three-cylinder L it just looks like a tractor it looks East German yeah yeah it does it does has that eural kind of feel to it you know it's really hard to make an engine goodlooking that's that's really trick about the jagar 4.2 such a magnificent looking thing it's a beautiful looking motor as well and of course Very Advanced for its time but just look at all the detail here these little these looks like rivets but they're not they're torque screws yeah yeah so the whole all the body panels are actually unscrew you don't have to cut anything apart oh very nice no trouble with these rattling loose or anything on the trip I know they they all held up pretty good yeah very good not going to be taking a trip with the wife with this well here I'll show you the trunk if you'd like to see the trunk so I made this piece of luggage here and then this lifts off yeah I see open it up oh I see there you go I didn't realize that was there so you got your jack in there and the well is this battery under here yes sir boy nicely done and everything fits so well so and now this obviously looks like a fuel cap but you got a quick quick I mean it I mean it looks like a gas cap and you got a quick connector on here and how long does it take to fill up with uh natural gas about 10 minutes yeah it's not terribly long there's also different styles of fill there's the Quick Fill that's usually at the stations that you drive to and then you can also if you had one installed in your house usually that's going to be a slow fill so you're talking about I see yeah yeah overnight and it's just again it's the same natural gas for your dryer or your stove yeah it actually smells like a hot water heater when you're driving it you can smell it you know yeah yeah and that's the nice thing about it is you have an natural gas car you can refill it at home put it in at night and do a slow fill 3 4 hours something like well the the the there are several companies out there now working on home filling stations right that that uh are remarkable I know one set of guys is working on one that does a dump of 10 gge 10 gon dump and then a trickle fill I see so if you just need 10 gallons boom you can get it like that wow very nice and what is the mixture of natural gas to air uh the air fuel ratios can be many things you can run all the way from from 10 to one to 18 to1 it depends on how much efficiency you're looking for now gasoline and air is what it 14 14.7 14.7 okay what would this be average uh well well again it depends on on on what how much power you want to make it's just like your stove when you want your stove to get hotter you just turn it you just turn the knob up right gotcha gotcha very cool nicely done nicely done and just uh just spend some time in the details the engine turned firewall this is your oil filter right here and I imagine with uh natural gas your oil stays a lot cleaner doesn't it yeah uh oil changes are every 10,000 miles wow okay so you use a lot it's a lot easier on the oil because it doesn't have any of the any of the soot going down into like when you pull a spark plug out that Rascal is clean right right and how many how many miles have you done on this particular car uh we're over 5,000 mil on it now and uh no major mechanical failures after 5,000 miles in the front end here as you can see his uh natural gift as a designer that's a great looking look here nicely done kind of looks like the front of my uh 34 dusenberg it's got this the same kind of much closer together but nicely these veins actually channel the air into the into the radiator and man our cooling system is like I said it's it's overly efficient well you know the early ones like my Packard and stuff those veins would turn when you thermostat until they freeze up and then they get stuck somewhere until they rust or something but when they left the factory they would open and close but this is nicely done I like that sort of fish mouth look to it there that's kind of cool and these headlights what those Hollow obviously uhen yeah they're a hogen all in one housing turn highs and lows yeah very nice anybody any cops stopped you going hey what is that did you get any of that not one not not one encounter with the police um and not one truly bad thing happened to us on the trip uh except that at one point the gate was shut on one of the fuel stations it was listed as 24 hours yeah uh it was 4:00 a.m. in the morning in North Carolina and we had to start a campfire to keep from freezing to death very H Nelson Jackson yeah yeah very nice very nice and look at this little detail here these look like little Pistons these caps on your yeah those are uh the reservoirs R reservoirs that's all motorcycle components actually a lot of what we uh what we did and used was all motorcycle stuff since we're both bike guys and what is that steering uh unit uh it's a rack and pinion right I mean is that an aftermarket or is it off a car oh it's an aftermarket just a aftermarket rack and pinion you could either run power steering or not have power steering I see it definitely does not need power steering now you guys took pictures along the way are you on Facebook yeah how can they follow if they want to see what the trip was like yeah you can follow it at facebook.com/ bville studios Okay very cool I just love this kind of American Ingenuity this is what people do when they're not playing video games and all that other nonsense you got time to spend in your garage building cool stuff it's just a wonderful wonderful car let's take it for a SP although it's geared very tall still has plenty of power what do you thinkig you're getting miles per gallon equivalent uh I actually we've done a couple of calculations that yield uh between 30 and 35 MPG wow that's pretty good and you could make it if if you didn't want to put a 411 in it you get some real power out of it couldn't you there you go it's got that great Jag sound I need a power nice thing is it's a good looking car as well you can see JT has a what a fine arts degree Fine Arts degree see he's got a real designer's eye boy it steers wonderfully it is kind of cool having a car you can just fill up in your garage you got a water heater or a gas dryer you could run this right out of your garage never go to a gas station again did you get it hot at all coming across country no it stayed right at about 180 yeah so you never got it to 220 couple of times so man yesterday driving it on the 4:05 at 4:00 on Friday afternoon yeah Bumble a bump R if it was going to break it would have done it yesterday yeah yeah you know she's geared so tall you can run a third gear all day at what 60 M hour you're only turnning 2500 rpm and it handles wonderfully I know you say it's 2700 lb but it feels like it weighs about 1,700 lb and how much does natural gas way not much yeah me if it was gasoline you'd be put an extra what 200 lb in the car right yeah yeah good brakes too see that so you can be a hot Roder and uh be an alternative fuel guy and be an engineer and a designer and dressed up to please your mom and do the whole bit so uh JT thanks a lot hey you're very been a real thrill if you'd like to know more about his website give it to him again uh the website is bville studios.com bville studios.com well good to see American hot roding going to the next level and I love the fact that you're running on natural gas this is a real wellth thought out intelligent product so congratulations my friend thank you see you guys next week I'm not doing a burnout cuz it's his car and he's got a Too Tall I tell you it won't do a burnout but when you put those 41s in it bring it back then we'll do a burnout see you next week\n"