THE JAGUAR E-TYPE AT SIXTY
By Andrew Roberts |
12th March, 2021
Picture the scene – a semi-detached villa somewhere in East Cheam on Wednesday 15th March 1961. You are glancing at The Daily Herald over breakfast with Housewives’ Choice playing on the BBC Light Programme in the background – and then you come to the motoring page. ‘0-100 mph in 15secs - that’s the new Jag’ reads the headline while, even more incredibly, the E-Type was capable of 150 mph.
To understand the sheer impact of a Jaguar E-Type on the average British motorist, consider the typical family transport of sixty years ago. An E-Type appears to not so much exist in a different realm to the Austin A55 Cambridge Mk. II and the Standard Ensign as another galaxy. If Mr. East Cheam felt especially frugal, he might have opted for a Ford Popular 100E, with its vacuum-powered wipers and arthritic 1,172cc engine that struggled to attain 70 mph.
As the automotive historian and author Philip Porter observes, the E-Type represented as much a quantum leap as did the XK120 in 1948. ‘It was not just the headlines about the top speed; it was also the stunning sculptural beauty of its bodywork’. Autocar of 24th March 1961 stated the Jaguar amounted ‘to a breakthrough in design of high-performance vehicles for sale to the public’ and that it offered ‘what drivers have so long asked for’. In December of that year, Car & Driver rhapsodised over the E-Type.
Our first impressions of taking over this car are not easy to describe. The car is beautiful to look at from any angle, and it was said by many, who saw it in the flesh for the first time when meeting our test crew, that pictures so far published had all failed to do justice to its appearance.
Today Mr. Porter is the custodian of two of the world’s most famous E-Types - 9600 HP and 848 CRY. The former is a Fixed Head Coupe, constructed as a pre-production prototype in 1960. It was then:
used for development work, then the 150mph road tests, then as the press launch car in March ’61 at Geneva, then press car, before being sold by Jaguar in early 1962, and having a number of high profile owners.
The second Porter E-Type was the 12th Roadster to leave the production line in 1961. Seven years later 848 CRY featured in The Italian Job.
The Jaguar commenced its film career with a cameo in the entertaining B-feature Seven Keys and was one of the few watchable elements of Casino Royale.
A 4.2 Roadster also guest-starred in Dateline Diamonds, where it took part in a truly implausible final reel chase.
Mr. Porter acquired 848 in 1977, and it is now fully-restored and frequently recognised as a film star and a genuine automotive icon
Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of the E-Type is that such an awe-inspiring vehicle was comparatively attainable. Mr. Porter notes that it was entirely feasible for a young solicitor or architect to aspire to Jaguar ownership. £2,097 for the Roadster and £2,196 for the Coupe may have been expensive but, crucially, neither was an impossible goal for a senior partner. By contrast, an Aston Martin DB4 cost £4,127 and was a car for actors of a Peter Sellers level of fame. In 1979 L J K Setright reflected that:
the very idea that it was possible to buy in the 1960s a mass-produced two-seater of modest size, dramatic appearance and quite fantastic performance for less than £2100 (apart from tax) smote the entire motoring world with a sense of awe that it had not felt since the unveiling of the original XK120
Production of the E-Type ended in June 1974, and it would be fair to state there was no immediate replacement. To quote Mr. Porter, ‘Jaguar sought a wholly different market with the XJ-S for it was a grand tourer’. And to look at this Pathe Newsreel footage shot thirteen years earlier is to illustrate how an E-Type both anticipated “The 1960s” and made so many other cars at this show seem archaic.
With Thanks To: Philip Porter
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