You have to be a fierce, foresighted, entrepreneur to turn £1 into a return of more than £1 million – even if it is a labour of love.
That is exactly what an entrepreneur and collector did when he found a wreck of an E-Type Jaguar in a dusty old barn in Worcestershire, in 2000.
Under the hammer for more than a million.
Very soon auctioneers will sell that car , in London, for more than more than £1 million.
All it took was 23 years of patience and careful restoration to return the 1961 E-Type Series 3.8-Litre Fixed Head Coupe to its former glory. A sleek sports car with top speed of 150 mph.
The car for the stars.
It is the one of only four “outside bonnet lock right-hand drive E-Types ever built, the Daily Telegraph reported. The others no longer exist.
The E-Type was a status symbol of the stars in the 1960s. Frank Sinatra, Brigitte Bardot, George Best and Mick Jagger owned one.
A sports car legend mouldering in a barn.
The mystery entrepreneur – we will have to call him that as he doesn’t want to be identified ahead of his million-pound sale. He saw an opportunity the day he clapped eyes on the clapped-out E-Type in the Worcestershire barn.
It was one of two E-Types mouldering away. The mystery entrepreneur agreed to restore both classic cars as long as he could buy the Fixed Head Coupe for £1.
“It needed to be pulled apart…”
“They were in a mess, they had been stuck in a barn for 20 years and they hadn’t moved, everything needed to be stripped down, a full restoration. It needed to be pulled apart and put back together again,” he told the Telegraph.
The mystery entrepreneur employed a restoration firm. Workers stripped the car down to its tiniest bolt and put it back together again. He paid the firm more than £100,000.
The upshot of this loving restoration is an E-Type Jaguar that looks like it has just rolled out of the factory.
“The most beautiful car in the world.”
Enzo Ferrari once said that Jaguar E-Type was the ‘most beautiful car in the world.’
Many who agree with Ferrari will line up at the auction in London to bid for the born-again Fixed Head Coupe.
Auctioneers expect bids of up to £1,400,000.
Take a peek in the barn.
The mystery entrepreneur wants to put some of the money into his charitable foundation.
So, entrepreneurs, the next time you walk past a barn on a farm – take a peek inside. It could reveal another car wreck waiting to be turned into a million pounds.
