The blob that rocked

By Jonathan Meades

Enzo Ferrari called Peter Collins "a really great driver". He described the E-Type, designed by Malcolm Sayer and launched in 1961—three years after Collins’s death at the Nürburgring—as "the most beautiful car ever made". Yet in their home country, both man and car were, 50 years ago and in a Britain still saturated with post-war monochrome, ahead of their time. They were fast—a tad gaudy, immodestly glamorous, almost Italian. Collins lived on a yacht in Monaco, shirked National Service, looked like a film star and married an American actress. The E-Type would doubtless have behaved kindredly. For it was, after all, a Jaguar.

And in those days Jags possessed—in their native country if not elsewhere—the reputation of being the car of choice of the spiv, the wide boy, the chancer. A Jag, especially the 2.4 and the 3.4, was the automotive equivalent of bookie’s checks. No matter that the E-Type’s precursors, the C-Type and D-Type, had won Le Mans five times in the 1950s—the marque quite lacked the handmade allure of Bristol, AC, Morgan, etc. Jaguars, however, were for driving and boasting, for amour propre and seduction. Further, the E-Type was not a sports car but belonged to the exotic classification of GT (Gran Turismo): indeed, it was initially destined for the export market. It was evidently more at home on Highway One or La Grande Corniche than heading for adventure between Mundesley and Cromer.