RIP Bud Court So Let’s Talk About The Jaguar E-Type Hearse He Made Famous

Sometimes actors do something so memorable at the beginning of their careers that is tends to define them for the rest of their lives; actor Bud Cort was one such actor. Fortunately for him, that work that he would come to be associated with for the rest of his life became a cult classic, the 1971 dark comedy about a peculiar but loving relationship between a quite old woman and a quite young man, Harold and Maude. My sister told me that Court died yesterday, at the age of 78.

I’ll leave the real obituaries to other, more qualified outlets, but I’ll just note that Cort was an engaging and versatile actor (he even voiced a computer in the weird-AI-predicting 1984 film Electric Dreams) , and while most people just know him as the suicide-and-death-obsessed sullen rich kid Harold from Harold and Maude, he did so much more – and, I learned, was an accomplished painter as well.

But I’m not going to fight the Harold and Maude associations, because that lets me drag this back to cars, specifically the legendary Jaguar E-Type that was used in the movie, and was converted into what may have been the world’s fastest hearse, at least at the time.

The car is first introduced as a 1971 (?) Jaguar XK-E, a US-spec model, and a convertible. It’s a gift from Harold’s mother to Harold, intended to replace the 1959 Cadillac hearse Harold was driving, in hopes that this stylish sportscar would make Harold more appealing to the ladies:

Of course, Harold had other plans:

Yes, he converted the Jag into a hearse. Of all the events that happen in this movie, this transformation of a car by one young man in a garage in the course of a couple days at most is the one that demands the most determined suspension of disbelief. But it’s worth it, because the end result looks so damn good.

The Jag was converted into the hearse by SoCal-based customizer Red Harden, who was known for working on such cars as Dragula and the Munster Coach, perhaps in cooperation with legendary customizer George Barris, or perhaps Barris took credit as is sometimes insinuated; it’s not exactly clear. Regardless, these cars do have some manner of thematic ties to an E-Type hearse, so it all sort of makes sense.

The hearse wasn’t made from the XK-E convertible seen in the movie; it appears to have been made out of a 1967 Jaguar E-Type Series 1 fixed-head 2+2 coupé, with landau bars taken from a Ford Thunderbird (top):

…and, interestingly, the roof and low-mounted taillights were taken from a Datsun 510 wagon:

The conversion was genuinely beautiful; the curvy haunches of the E-type were retained, and even called out with chrome piping that bordered the vinyl roof, and the wreath etched into the rear glass (also from the Datsun, along with the whole cut-down hatch; look at the two vents on either side below the window to confirm) was an inspired touch. Really, if you replaced the landau bars with windows, you’d have a fantastic E-Type shooting brake.

Sadly, this shooting brake was definitively broken during the shooting of the movie, as it was launched off a cliff and completely pancaked itself upon the rocky ground:

You may notice that there’s a strange freeze frame just after the hearse launches into the air and hangs, nose down, before continuing to plummet:

This is because the complex remotely-triggered camera setup didn’t entirely work, and two of the cameras set up failed, so this dramatic freeze-frame was used to cover the gap. Luckily, the other two cameras did work, so the Jag didn’t give itself up for nothing.

The car is a genuine movie icon, and there is at least one extremely faithful reproduction that was built at considerable expense:

That’s all impressive. But before I wrap this up, Let’s just appreciate Bud Court’s acting chops a bit more, even when not behind the wheel of a custom-built Jaguar hearse. I always thought he was fantastic as the bond company stooge Bill Ubell in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic:

He does a great job of speaking Tagalog in the scene, especially the literal rendering of “shitstorm,” or so I’m told.

Also, I had no idea, but Bud Court was originally going to be a main character in Pumping Iron, the documentary about body building that introduced the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger. It seems wildly improbable, but it’s true; he decided not to continue with the movie and the footage was not in the final release, but the cut footage was eventually released:

Amazing, right? Who knew?

Anyway, rest in peace, Bud.