This 1969 Jaguar E-Type keeps getting better with age

According to Webster’s dictionary, the meaning of the word “patina” is “a surface appearance of something grown beautiful especially with age or use”. Of course, when the object in question happens to be a Jaguar E-Type, well, you are talking about one of the most beautiful motor cars ever created. Geoff Clark bought his 1969 Jaguar E-Type roadster brand new and has owned the car ever since.  

This, then, is a 53-year-old one-owner car, unrestored, and in absolutely original condition. It has never been repainted, the engine has never been reconditioned, and it even carries its original soft-top hood. Dashboard, leather seat upholstery (protected by sheepskin covers), carpeting, wire wheels, bumpers ... You can run down the list of items you may need to replace during 53 years of ownership. In the case of Geoff’s car, everything is original, apart from wear and tear items such as brake pads and tyres. Oh! The clutch was replaced for the first time last year, after 52 years of service! “I was working in Nigeria for a British banking concern, when I decided to buy it,” says Geoff, who today is a well-patinated but original 85-year-old gentleman, with all essential parts still working!  

“I consulted with the local Jaguar dealer at the time, and arranged for the car to be delivered to my home base in the northeast of England. “It’s a 4,2-litre model, with a four-speed manual gearbox without overdrive, and it’s known as the Series II version, which you can recognise easily, because it lacks the glass headlight covers of the original Series I cars.”   

“As it happened, I needed to leave Nigeria as civil war was breaking out in that country soon after I bought the E-Type, and shortly afterwards I was posted to Durban in South Africa. Landing in such a lovely place, with beautiful roads and sunny weather nearly all year round, it made perfect sense for me to ship the Jaguar over to South Africa as soon as possible.” Geoff took up a post as bank inspector, which meant he was allotted a company car so he could travel to all parts of South Africa, inspecting bank branches. This meant the Jaguar spent most of its time in a garage, for use as a weekend car. And now, even though he has been retired for two decades, the 1969 Jaguar remains a weekend car.  

“It’s important, with an old car, to use it regularly, so that items like the brakes, the steering, the engine and gearbox are kept operating as they were intended. I still drive the E-Type at least once a week, for this reason. But the shocks are still original. The car has only done 58,000 miles (93,000km).”  

It is probably true to say Geoff Clark’s Jaguar must be one of the most original examples on the planet. It still wears its original paint in a colour called Opalescent Golden Sand, and though the paint is faded and carries the scuffs of various encounters with inconsiderate human beings, those minor battle scars tell the story of its life with Geoff. For instance, just above the rear bumper on the right-hand side, there is a slight dent that occurred when someone rear-ended the Jag over 40 years ago in Durban.   

It was so slight that Geoff decided it would be better to leave it alone. Even the bumper survived pretty much unscathed, and all that was really required was a new tail light lens. On another occasion, a jealous, small-minded lout “coined” the left rear flank of the Jaguar. This was a fad popular among hooligans in the ‘70s and ‘80s, where they would run a sharp-edged coin along the paintwork of a car, just to prove to their mates how clever and manly they were. That blemish still adorns the Jag, as does a cut in the soft-top, inflicted by another jealous vandal, probably with a Stanley knife. 

“I have toyed with the idea of embarking on a full restoration, of course. But knowledgeable members of the VVC (the Vintage and Veteran Club in Athol Oaklands, Johannesburg) have advised against it. Because, once you restore a car, you lose a lot of the history that the car carries, that is part of its charm.” 

Jaguar’s E-Type was an overnight sensation when it was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961. Originally in 3.8-litre form, it came with a claimed top speed of 150mph (240km/h). But it was the shape that really captured the imagination, derived from Jaguar’s winning Le Mans efforts in the 1950s.  

It was deemed so beautiful that an example was commissioned for display in the New York Museum of Modern Art! Not only was the E-Type beautiful and fast, it was relatively affordable. You could buy two E-Types for an equivalent Aston Martin, or three of them for the price of a comparative Ferrari!  

The twin overhead camshaft engine with three SU carburettors was powerful and reliable, and when the capacity increased to 4.2-litres, it had even more torque. Geoff Clark feels the 240km/h top speed claim only applied to specially-prepared road test cars, but he admits to seeing “over 200km/h” in his car on a few occasions.

The 4.2-litre engine was still rated at 265 horsepower (197kW), as was the 3.8-litre version, but had 438Nm of torque. Handling, for the time, was excellent at high speed, and the E-Type came with four-coil-spring independent rear suspension and disc brakes all round. Because of its relatively affordable price, the Jaguar E-Type was a great success in terms of sales. A total of 8,628 Series II roadsters were made, most of them sold in the US.

And total E-type production, from 1961 until the final V12 Series III model bowed out in 1975, numbers more than 70,000. In South Africa Jaguar E-Types were pretty rare, because they had to be specially imported and were subject to over 100% import duty in those days. But there are a still a number of them in existence here.  

“It was a real bird-puller”, says Geoff with a wink. Upon settling in South Africa, Geoff married a young South African lady and the couple enjoyed more than a few trips to the Cape in the E-Type. Amazingly, the body is absolutely rust-free, something that could never be said for the E-Types that had to survive the rigours of the English winters. Seeing Geoff Clark’s unrestored E-Type today is like witnessing a time warp.  

There is always going to be a temptation to restore such a car to showroom condition, but once that has been done, the car can never again be returned to original condition. As Webster’s dictionary notes, patina allows an object to grow more beautiful with age. The fact that this car has survived so unscathed for 53 years, with its original owner, is a beautiful story in itself.

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