Buying From A Dealer

Buying an E-type from a dealer can be a very high risk activity. Of course there are a few notable exceptions, but the majority of dealers will not really know what they are selling. This is firstly because they will probably be selling MGs, Ferraris, Aston Martins and other Jaguars, and they cannot possibly have specialist knowledge on every model of every make. They will be unlikely to have a workshop with specialist mechanics who know the cars inside out. They only make money if they sell the car relatively quickly and so it is not commercially practical for them to spend time and money on the cars. Furthermore, as we have seen, once you start working on a car it is possible for that work to escalate and the costs likewise.

When buying, or if selling on commission, the dealer (unless he is an E-type specialist) will have had to rely on the vendor's description. Sitting in their showroom, the car will look very smart because they have concentrated on the cosmetics knowing that that is what sells a car to the uninitiated. But, as we stress elsewhere, a newly-painted car should be treated with scepticism.

Unfortunately, it is a fact that restoration invariably costs more than the car is worth. This situation has varied over the years and may change in the future. When prices reached silly heights in the late eighties, cars were briefly selling for more than the true cost of properly restoring them, but when values took a dive in the early nineties this was no longer the case. For these reasons, it is rarely commercially viable for reputable companies to restore cars to sell. The exceptions will be historic, more valuable cars and firms that charge a high price for standard cars and find a few wealthy clients per year. More recently 'upgraded cars' have entered the equation and these are commanding a premium (often considerable) over standard cars, making full restoration and upgrading more viable.

A dealer can be an entirely honest and honourable individual (and there are a very few) but with the best will in the world will not know the true state of the engine, or what quality of components has been used in a rebuild, or what the bodyshell is really like under that nice, shiny paint. Thus you need to deal with a reputable company who will still be around if any problems do arise.

Buying At Auction

Another way of buying an E-type is at auction. Personally, I would advise people to be very wary, unless the car in question is an historic car with a known history. The Lightweight E-types are, for example, a very different matter! For lesser cars, the auction can be a way of quickly getting rid of something that would not sell in any other way. It can be a last resort. The extremely brief descriptions given in the catalogue are often vague and may not be based on reality. The cars may not been viewed by the auctioneers and the catalogues are thus written from the vendor's own highly optimistic, favourable opinions of their car. I know all this because many years ago, I was retained by a large firm of auctioneers to write some of their classic car catalogue entries. Typically, the first two thirds of the catalogue description is waffle about the model of car, rather than the specific example in question.

Obviously, you have no way of thoroughly examining the car being offered and cannot road test it. Please be very careful.

This is not say that there are not a few reputable auction houses but caution is needed and one should never make an impulse purchase.