From the moment it was unveiled at the 1961 Geneva Motor Show, the Jaguar E-type was one of THE cars to be seen in. Beautiful, exotic, fast and expensive, it was the perfect machine for people who were similarly beautiful, exotic, fast and expensive: the rich and famous of their day. Not that the E-type’s allure was limited to just the years when it was in production; unlike many other Jaguars, its image didn’t pass through the ‘banger phase’ that often affects other models of the marque on their way to becoming thoroughbred classics. Even after the E-type disappeared from Jaguar’s catalogues in 1975, it remained desirable and enticing, continuing to lure the affluent and important. And it does so right to this day -nothing quite says ‘I have arrived’ like arriving in a Jaguar E-type.
Jaguar’s sexy new sports car really did seduce celebrities right from its very start. It’s believed that the very first person to place an order for one, immediately after he’d seen it on the first day of the Geneva Motor Show in March 1961, was one Jacques Charrier. His name may not mean too much today, although he remains quite well-known in the field of painting and ceramics. But back at the beginning of the 1960s, the Frenchman was more famed as an actor. Actually, that’s not quite true -his real fame (or perhaps infamy) at the time was because of who he was married to, a
