HISTORY
We meet an Italian Jaguar enthusiast with what must be one of the nicest Daimlers in Europe... and one of the nicest places to keep it too
So often in the world of Jaguars and Jaguar owners it’s the impressions from early childhood which have formed an attachment to the marque and Verona-based Kenrick Briffa is no exception.
Growing up in Malta where his father’s work had taken the family, he recalls living close to the island’s British High Commission and being enthralled by the streams of Jaguar cars ferrying assorted local dignitaries in and out of the gates.
This being the late 1960s, the cars included 420G, Mk2, XJ6, 420 and S-Type – although Ken recalls puzzling over quite why the front and rear of the S-Type looked as if they were styled by different people...
An early enthusiasm for all things Jaguar was obvious from an early age, when his father found him staring intently at the front of his newly purchased Rover P6... except as it turned out, what had caught the budding Jaguar owner’s eye was the then-new
XJ6 Series 1 parked right behind it.
As soon as he was able to, Ken acquired a Jaguar of his own, this being a Daimler Six purchased in 2001. This would later be replaced by a Jaguar XJ6 and he slowly began to build a collection around it.
First came an XKR, fully optioned with all the ‘R’ Performance options, which was then joined by an XJ of the V8-engined X308 generation. “And then I suddenly decided I wanted an E-Type,” he laughs. And it was here that he really lucked out with an original unrestored 1966 car which had spent its entire life in the Verona area.
You’ll see more of the E-Type in an upcoming issue but it was joined by a Daimler SP250 which makes a fascinating counterpoint to the iconic Jaguar but which Ken reports being unexpectedly impressive. “It’s so light,” he enthuses. “Such fun to drive.”
The collection of British cars was expanded by the addition of a Bentley Arnage T on his wife’s insistence (a carcassonne, or ‘big box’ he says in comparison to the XJ), but the Jaguars were reinforced in 2017 with the car you see here: a Series 3 XJ, or to put it correctly, a Daimler Double Six.
Thought to be one of the very last made – possibly within the last 100 off the line – the car was purchased new by the Missoni family, famous for the fashion label of the same name. Having spent time in Britain and even met his wife in London, Ottavio Missoni clearly had a liking for British cars and the Double Six remained in his family for 25 years, Ken becoming effectively its second owner.
By that time the car had clocked up over 170,000km but fortunately for the Jaguar’s bodywork, the Missoni family report that it wasn’t often used for the daily commute into the rough and tumble of Milan city cen
