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 Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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It was a car that when the covers came off at the Geneva Motor Show, Enzo Ferrari described it as “the most beautiful car ever made”.
It was a sensation when it was launched and remains Jaguar’s most enduring and iconic symbol and one of the most exciting cars ever created.
That can be proved by its past owners. They include Brigitte Bardot, Steve McQueen, Peter Seller, George Best, Tony Curtis, Mick Jagger, Adam Faith, George Harrison, the Duke of Kent and most of the legendary sixties Grand Prix drivers!
When Frank Sinatra saw one in a showroom on Sunset Strip he walked in and said to the salesman, ‘I want that car and I want it now’ he didn’t get it as it was the only one they had.
In the first year of production the cars would be mobbed when they were stopped at traffic lights. Two E-types including the original car that was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show and the car that was featured in the Italian Job.
It was fantastic value for money, cost around £2,000, half the money that a comparable Aston Martin, Ferrari or Porsche would cost and yet it had greater comfort and sophistication and was as fast as any other car at that time.
There were 70,000 E-type Jaguars built between 1961 and 1974, when production finally ceased and it is estimated that around 50,000 are still on the roads today.
In the UK, the collecting boom for the cars started in 1972 before it went out of production and it continues to this day with values rocketing in the last few years. There are enthusiasts all over the world while the E-type Jaguar club has members in more than 50 countries including America where 60% of the cars were once sold. It has regular meetings and rallies and there is a monthly magazine called "The E-type.”
Today an E-type, depending on the model and condition, would cost a collector anywhere between £30,000 and £60,000. There were three main models: Series I, II and III and the most valuable are still the early Series I. There were also a handful of lightweight racing E-types that are worth seven figures. And yet this car that is so redolent of the Swinging Sixties and has since become a cult was not designed as a trend setter that would be remembered for defining its age half a century later. It was 30 years before the E-type’s arrival that Jaguar’s founder Sir William Lyons had launched the first of his long-bonneted cars that were designed as “Grand Tourers” and which were to become the hallmark of the company.
Sir William, who was born in Blackpool, had started out in business making flashy aluminium sidecars for motorbikes. As the fortunes of his sidecars grew, he moved the business to Coventry.
“Wait, the SS is coming,” ran the logo on advertisements designed by Sir William on billboards in the Midlands. And the company might have remained SS were it not for the connection with the Nazis. In 1935 an advertising agency dreamed up the name Jaguar and Sir William launched his first SS Jaguar 100.
It was followed by the XK120, so named because it could reach 120 mph and was followed by the XK150. In the Fifties Jaguar launched its assault on the world of motor sport, in particular at the Le Mans 24-hour race with drivers like Stirling Moss. It won the race in 1951 and 1953 and with that success developed the racing C and D type cars. It was also mass-producing its legendary Mark II road car, which was so beloved by Inspector Morse and type-cast as a bank robbers’ getaway car.
After the great success at Le Mans the racing department was given a further brief to use the basis of the D-type racing car to build a sports car to replace the XK150. The result was the E-type.
In 1961 owning a car was an aspiration for most of the population. There were scarcely any motorways and Britain moved slowly. The average saloon car, for example, had a top speed of around 70mph and few ever travelled that fast.
The launch of the E-type Jaguar changed our aspirations. It was as extraordinary an event as the release of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a few years later. It had a top speed of 150mph and was impossibly glamorous and classless. “You don’t need a title to climb into an E-type,” said one American commentator at the time while the journalist Henry Manney wrote that the car was “the greatest crumpet catcher known to man”.
It is impossible to overstate the impact the E-type had when it was unveiled in 1961. It is a car that encapsulated the spirit of the revolutionary era it came to symbolise. The E-type is a design that even today continues to inform the work we do in styling the Jaguars of the future.
It has also been voted by the British public as “the most beautiful car ever”. With our new enthusiasm for fuel-saving, eco-friendly runabouts that view is unlikely to ever change, particularly for any Briton who knows that it was the car that turned the world from stuffy to cool.
Tomick attached the following image(s):
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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The E-TYPE will forever be synonymous with the 60's and was owned by a succession of trendsetters of the decade., George Harrison (of The Beatles) even had a record player fitted in his E-TYPE.
Licence plate: 499 HLX
Date of First Registration: 28/02/1964
Cylinder Capacity: 3,781cc
Black
Used to be seen at Goodwood, wonder where it is now?
DeAgsotini Beatles vinyl collection:
http://www.deagostini.co...U1oXMitMCFXEW0wodVhsJMQ
Tomick attached the following image(s):
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Rank: Administration        Groups: Registered, Forum Support Team, Administrators, Global Forum Support Team, Moderator, Official Builds Joined: 09/11/2012 Posts: 8,285 Points: 23,943 Location: East midlands
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Don`t know where it is, but when you find it here`s an article about how to clean it and what to do with the water afterwards. The instructions were written by George Harrison in a letter to a fan. Keep it cleanWonder if it was Paul`s car that was to get the muddy water.  Regards delboy271155 (Derek) COME BACK GUY FAWKES "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU"
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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delboy271155 wrote:Don`t know where it is, but when you find it here`s an article about how to clean it and what to do with the water afterwards. The instructions were written by George Harrison in a letter to a fan. Keep it cleanWonder if it was Paul`s car that was to get the muddy water. Regards delboy271155 (Derek) Already posted
http://forum.model-space...spx?g=posts&t=22940
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Rank: Administration Groups: Registered, Forum Support Team, Administrators, Global Forum Support Team, Moderator, Official Builds Joined: 09/11/2012 Posts: 8,285 Points: 23,943 Location: East midlands
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Tomick wrote:delboy271155 wrote:Don`t know where it is, but when you find it here`s an article about how to clean it and what to do with the water afterwards. The instructions were written by George Harrison in a letter to a fan. Keep it cleanWonder if it was Paul`s car that was to get the muddy water. Regards delboy271155 (Derek) Already posted
http://forum.model-space...spx?g=posts&t=22940 DOH, missed that.  Regards delboy271155 (Derek) COME BACK GUY FAWKES "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU"
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