The 'E' Type Forum

A reminder that when the E type was released in 1961, old cars we view today as classics,
such as the jaguar MK1V were merely old bangers

My uncle owned a wrecking yard in Nottingham in the 1960's through to the 1980's.
I loved going there as a small boy. I still remember being entranced by a set of H8's on a Bentley.

I spent many happy hours at our local yard in the sixties, climbing around on piles of rusty old wrecks in muddy boots looking for bits to keep our old bangers going. Health and Safety people would have a fit nowadays.

I love the bloke on the cutting torch wearing a suit and tie !

During the 1970s I used to visit several stock car tracks around the west country. The cars that were used in those days would fetch a pretty penny today, including Jag saloons of all stripes.

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

When I was at UNI in the late 60s, we used to club together to buy a car from the scrapyard. £10 would get you an old Humber or similar that would run for about a month or so. £5 would be more of a risk on something less sound. We were driving one down Union Street when the driver's door fell off. We just picked it up, slung it in the boot, and carried on. Air conditioning!

Love the condition of the spare, not quite down to the canvass. And the shirt and tie, but no safety glasses of the welders while their torches spit white hot steel sparks at their co-workers.

It is, in fact, an SS Jaguar of about 1937 vintage, so probably one of the original coachbuilt ones ( the white faced instruments are the tell-tale ). Sad, really