Quentin bought the 1961 E-Type back in 2004 and was lucky enough to buy chassis number 860022 - the 22nd right-hand drive E Type coup? built ? for ?15k. It was driving and MoT?d, scruffy, cosmetically compromised and in the wrong colour, but had those all important matching numbers and plenty of pre-production features.
860022 was ?placed? with Brigadier Michael Head, a Jag? privateer racer with quite a bit of 1950s competition success in alloy 120s, C and D Types. Head was also a founding member of the Jaguar Drivers? Club and there was an annual JDC Michael Head Trophy Race well into the Sixties.
Norman Dewis has a diary note of testing my car round MIRA on Lofty?s orders before final delivery to Bracknell Motors in Berkshire. Head had been asked by Sir William Lyons to write a report on the car as well as parade it at racing circuits.
Even more research threw up letters, bills and photos from a raft of previous owners going back to the early 70s. Sometime in the 60s it lost its original registration and wore 220 FLU. The DVLA tracked down the original 1961 plate ? 150 ABL ? and re-issued it to me. The car now had an interesting and quite substantial history.
instead of realising how significant 150 ABL was and taking it to one of the many deeply professional E Type specialists, Quentin entrusted the resto to a local classic car bloke who he?d used successfully in the past. Trouble was, he was totally out of his depth and spent three years and a mountain of money, making endless excuses and a total and complete hash of the job. When the supposedly finished car was taken to Martin Robey in Nuneaton for a new bonnet with early inset louvres to be fitted, he broke the awful news. The standard of work was so astonishingly bad that the only thing to do was start all over again - which is exactly what he did.
Having cost and arm and a leg, the E-Type is now back to its former glory!
below some pics of an E type for sale......
and finally, another E type with a different view inside....
