LONDON.- This 1965 Jaguar MK2 has had just one owner from new and is for sale with
H&H Classics on 24 July at the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton. It is estimated to sell for £8,000 to £12,000.
The 90 year-old owner traded in an Austin A40 when he was 35 at his mothers suggestion. As a child he was lucky enough to be on one of the last flights out of Berlin on the eve of World War Two, arriving in England on 1st September 1939, where he has lived ever since. Maybe it is no coincidence that he has had a lifelong love affair with such an iconic British car.
Purchased from Jaguar's Piccadilly showroom, the 2.4 Auto in metallic British Racing green with beige leather and original tool kit has been owned by the vendor since new and has 78,127 miles on the clock.
Garaged all its life, ELF 543C displays excellent panel fit and has avoided the ravages of rust suffered by most other unrestored survivors although it would now benefit from some cosmetic tidying. Maintained by the same mechanic for many years, it is understood to drive well and is only now being offered for sale due to the owner's need to stop driving after reaching his 90th year.
The owner was born in Berlin in 1929 and vividly remembers living under the Nazi regime, including seeing torchlit Hitler Youth parades and Goerings cavalcade driving through the streets. Kristallnacht occurred on his ninth birthday (9 November 1938), on which evening his father was arrested and taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. As this was before the war, his father was released after a few weeks, in part as a result of the efforts of his blonde and blue-eyed mother, whom the Nazis could not believe was Jewish.
Escaping Berlin with his parents on the last flight to Amsterdam before the outbreak of WW2, they left for England on the last boat before war was declared, arriving on 1 September 1939.
Other members of his immediate family were not as lucky and did not manage to escape. His uncle Alfred and aunt Edith were murdered at Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944, and his first cousin Hans was murdered at Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945.
He has lived happily in England since 1939, feeling a lifelong gratitude and indebtedness to the United Kingdom for having saved his life and that of his parents during the darkest of times. The gratitude and attachment that I and my family have to this country is obviously huge and that applies, perhaps with particular force, to its armed and related services.
The Jaguar Mk II version of this car made its appearance in 1959, making a good car even better.