About John Jenkins
John drove a VW bug during the later years of college. San Diego had lots
of 356s then and they seemed to take great pleasure in passing a Bug, and he took
equal pleasure in looking at them. In 1972, before the ink dried on his college diploma,
he bought a '65 356C, and has driven 356's since.
John served as a Trustee of the Registry for many years and has contributed many articles to the Registry magazine as well as being a featured technical speaker at Registry Holidays. John was inducted into the Registry Hall of Fame in 2009 as described in this
President's Column.
John was taught that general maintenance is part of owning a car so rebuilding Zeniths was a natural evolution. He has always enjoyed the challenge of trying to return them to their original performance and looks. Over the years, John has lived in several other places, but always with his 356. And has remained active with the 356 Registry throughout. After moving back to San Diego, he kept rebuilding Zeniths for friends, as a hobby. The hobby took more and more time and some help was needed to branch out into the Solex. Another enthusiast who had a machine shop was required. Fortunately, he met Jim Kaufmann who wanted to do something similar for the 356 community, and, who was prepared to set up his own machine shop. Together they established 356 Carburetor Rescue.
Wanting more time to enjoy his retirement, and looking for new experiences; he now restores the Bosch Distributors for the early Porsches, and has begun restoring Triumph motorcycles. John has had special parts manufactured to keep the original performance parameters of the distributors he restores. All distributors are checked on a Sun Distributor Machine.