Nice car, the E Type.
I can remember the one that Mark Evans (part time TV vet) restored - A Car Is Reborn.
Cost him more to do up than it was actually worth though.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 5 Mar 12 at 10:21
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>>Cost him more to do up than it was actually worth though.
I have a friend who has more cars than is normal, including some fairly interesting and valuable ones. He has restored a few, but invariably says when the subject comes up "if you want a nice one, buy a nice one, it'll cost a lot less".
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Tastes differ of course and there are lots of flawed cars I like. But it surprises me a bit that Martin Brundle should have chosen to spend quite a lot of money on a V12 E Type.
I never really fancied the generally overrated E Type. It was famously sketched on a paper napkin or cigarette packet by Sir William Lyons who instructed his boffins to design something like that. Like crushed velvet flares, ornate shoes and the Monkees, it was part of the sixties explosion of garish vulgarity that people thought made London, and Britain, 'swinging'.
The rear suspension had a design fault. The coupé was much better looking than the topless versions. The 3.8 litre was the best model, the 4.2 the most reliable. The V12 was a failure.
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>> I never really fancied the generally overrated E Type. It was famously sketched on a
>> paper napkin or cigarette packet by Sir William Lyons who instructed his boffins to design
>> something like that.
This says it was based on the 1950s D-Type. tinyurl.com/87cktkz
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It's all well before my time, but isn't the E-type mythology partly due to the long post-E-type gap during which Jaguar (along with the rest of the British car industry) produced little of note or quality? It took until the current XK for Jaguar to produce anything nearly as striking - and even that has to be designed as much for paunchy golfers as for hip young blades in polo necks and winklepickers, which I know for a fact were universal in the 1960s.
I don't see the same mythologizing of a single model in anyone else's motoring tradition, which makes me suspect the the E-type's status is partly attributable to a lack of challengers.
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I was privileged to be assigned to drive an E-type 100 miles up the M1 on Wednesday afternoon. It was a 1964 S1 3.8, rebuilt at vast expense last year in full racing trim, a real prima donna of a car. Everything you read about them in the magazines is true.
My hearing has just about recovered. What a machine.
EDIT: This car: bit.ly/w17Rkw
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Sat 10 Mar 12 at 22:43
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Martin Brundle's E-Type, and other topics - VxFan
