Letter of the month
ROWAN ATKINSON’S theory of age-related reflection (Octane Cars, issue 253) is, I believe, totally accurate.
I have been a long-term sufferer of the same affliction. I don’t exactly know when it started but over the past few years in my rose-tinted world I have endeavoured unsuccessfully to trace my Ducati Elite, on which I passed my test, immediately opening up a new world of more powerful machines. Full licence in hand, aged 18, I purchased a 650 Triumph Tiger 110 that leaked oil like the Torrey Canyon but never let me down and took me all over the country. At least I know what happened to that. It was sold to the scrap man However, my latest quest to trace my old Jaguar E-type has been more fruitful. Aged 24, I bought it in 1972 from an ad in The Exchange & Mart and it was just three miles up the road from where I was working at the time.
All I had in the world was £600 and the car was advertised for sale at exactly that, but I had to have it. The seller refused to budge on the price until I explained I would be penniless if I gave him the full amount. He kindly relented, knocking off £3 so I could put some petrol in it.
I enjoyed the car for a few years before selling it via The Exchange & Mart and then bought a Lotus Cortina, registration number SNK 658D, for £200.
Almost 50 years later, with severe reflection and chequebook ready, I started trying to track down the E-type and, thanks to the DVLA’s search facility ‘Is my car taxed?’, I discovered two years ago that it had been SORN’d. Following a trawl through the auction sites, I found that it had recently been sold by Bonhams, who kindly passed my details to the new owner.
Fast-forward nearly two years, and the owner offered to sell it to me. It cost me nearly as much as Rowan’s Phantom and it requires a full restoration. So what did I get for my money? I got my old car back (bottle green with a white stripe but in dreadful condition), on its original chassis, engine and Coventry registration number, together with the old fold-up logbook with my name in it showing my purchase date in 1972. It doesn’t get much better than that.
LETTER OF THE MONTH WINS A MOUNTNEY STEERING WHEEL UP TO THE VALUE OF £300
The writer of Octane’s Letter of the Month can select from a range of Mountney Classic steering wheels Mountney Classic is part of the Mountney Group, which is based in Banbury and has been established nearly 50 years. It encompasses a host of brands and covers, not just modern and classic steering wheels and bo
