OWNER’S STORY
Thanks to spending much of its life in pieces, this 1971 E-Type is one of the most original Series 3s we’ve seen.
WHETHER IT’S to describe below average food to an enquiring waiter or a bad haircut to the stylist, we often use the word perfect when the opposite is true. Yet when it comes to this 1971 E-Type V12 open-twoseater, there’s no better adjective.
Thanks to having only a handful of owners and covering a mere 25,000 miles as well as a sensitive yet thorough recommissioning by leading specialist, M&C Wilkinson, being in pieces for over two decades has resulted in one of the most original and unmolested Series 3s we’ve seen.
With production of the V12 roadster not starting until August 1971, five months after the model’s initial launch, by leaving the Browns Lane assembly line on 11 October the same year it makes this British Racing Green example (chassis 1S 1103) one of the first. Supplied new through T Baker & Sons in Reading, Berkshire, it was originally registered to a doctor, Nigel Hannen, on 30 November. He obviously used the car sparingly since according to the surviving service records, by 1974 it had only covered 10,280 miles.
Sometime in the early Eighties, the E-Type suffered from an accident which damaged the front corner of the bonnet and although Dr Hannen claimed the insurance, the car was never repaired and on 21 January, 1981, it was sold to David Walker of Fareham.
As an ex-Jaguar and Aston Martin engineer, Walker soon dismantled the car in preparation to repair it, purchasing a new bonnet to replace the damaged original. Yet Walker never finished the project and for the next 25 years the car remained in pieces.
When Walker, by then in his eighties, passed away suddenly in the mid 2010s, his collection of Jaguars and Aston Martins was bought by well-known classic car dealer, Graeme Bull of Camberley Marine and Sports Cars based in Surrey. Having known the green E-type when still owned by Dr Hannen and therefore aware of its originality and provenance, Graeme had originally wanted to buy it in 1981.
With too many projects on the go, in 2016 Graeme decided to sell the green E-Type. Since it was a special car, he contacted someone he knew would appreciate its condition: Michael Wilkinson from established Jaguar specialist, M&C Wilkinson. Although the car was still in what he calls “big lumps” (body, rear axle, independent rear suspension, engine, gearbox and interior) it was also in a timewarp condition, showing no corrosion or any signs of repair while the paint and interior were all original.
Michael bought the Jaguar for himself and over the next 12 months put the car back together using as many of the original parts as possible, the exception being the vinyl hood since the original was looking tired and the rear screen now discoloured. Due to the
