Quentin Willson
With the quest to restore another early E-type over, I take my time to enjoy the rewards – before bracing myself for even more detail work...
and Steve Coogan go on a Jaguar E-type parts-sourcing mission
After two years of frantic restoration, 171 DBP – the 62nd right-hand drive E-type roadster built – took the Jaguar Drivers’ Club Royal Brierley concours cup at the JDC Prescott Hill Climb in June. XK Engineering in Coventry have done a sterling job and owner Steve Coogan and I couldn’t be more delighted. We’d both burnt too much midnight oil sourcing obscure pre-production parts from the internet and days spent rooting through grimy boxes at rainy autojumbles.
The differences between the first 500 1961 outside-lock E-types and the later models are legion and the hunt for all those elusive pre-production parts became a holy quest for a pair of anal car bores. But prices have gone nuts – £1500 for a firstedition handbook, £2500 for a toolkit and £1200 for a jack. Even the correct key fob will now set you back a grand. No wonder so few people do this.
But our efforts felt totally vindicated when 171 DBP was parked at Prescott next to 3800 RW, the 36th rhd roadster
built. Both cars were from the first batch of 56 UK dealer demonstrators and both appeared in that famous photo of July 1961 outside the Browns Lane factory.
This was the first time they’d been together for 58 years and spookily their engine numbers were just a few digits apart. Comparing the tiny details on both cars was a joy and finding that we’d got DBP so close to its factory launch spec was a special moment. When the strict judges raised their eyebrows at our authentic period bits like the carry-over XK150 Bakelite brake and clutch reservoir tops, a NOS stockinette top radiator hose and the one-year-only Champion ‘Dot’ spark plug caps, we knew we had blessed DBP with those little touches that mean so much.
This is my second restoration of an early flat-floor E-type and you’d think I’d know better by now. But as temporary custodian of these historic cars you’re propelled by a powerful feeling of obligation to bring them back from the dead. To wipe away all the years of neglect and bodgery so the next generation of enthusiasts can really understand and appreciate them. It’s not about profit, but a pure impulse to try and recreate that special moment in history when the whole world looked at these very first E-types and sighed in wonder.
Would I do another? Absolutely. I’d restore as many ’61 E-types as I could find which, fortunately for me, isn’t a huge number. But before I embark on another sacred mission, DBP has one more hill to climb. Having won the Premier Class at Prescott, it can now enter the Jaguar Drivers’ Club Champion of Champions concours at the NEC in November where an army of E-type expert judges will poke around in every cranny and crevice. So for the next few months we’ll be furiously adjusting, polishing and double-checking that everything is forensically perfect. Steve already has a two-page list of minutiae that still needs to be done.
But, as I write, it feels like it’s been raining non-stop since 1961 and the roads are too waterlogged to drive DBP back to XK Engineering for some tiny under-bonnet detailing. We’re on a tight deadline with a whole bunch of stuff to do and still more parts to find. Jings, is that the time?