Owning an S-type

The S-type is one of eight Jaguars owned by Michael Ballard – understandable as he restores them for a living. ‘I’ve owned this for 20 years and it was restored 15 years ago,’ he says. ‘It does need some love now – it’s had to spend the last two winters outside, but is off to Le Mans in a couple of weeks. It was a Coombssupplied car and the only one in Pearl Grey – they painted it specially for the first owner. It also has the rare power steering option. I’ve upgraded it with a few Coombs period Mk2 modifications to the engine and suspension.

‘A new exhaust was a large recent expense, but overall the average is about £500 a year to run it. I think Autoglym is the biggest expense – it takes a lot of cleaning and polishing to keep it looking like this. It’s done 24,000 miles since restoration, including holidays in France and America.’