"It's a car for posing in really"

Broadcaster Michael Buerk reflects on more than three decades with his beloved Jaguar E-type S1 3.8 fixed-head coupé

- MARTIN BUCKLEY

Journalist, newsreader and celebrated BBC foreign correspondent Michael Buerk was a 15-year-old Brummie only just into long trousers (and discovering the delights of the James Bond books) when the Jaguar E-type was launched in 1961. "Growing up in Solihull, near the Rover factory, every car was black," he recalls. "You'd look through a car's window to see if the speedometer went above 60mph, in which case it was extremely exotic. There were no foreign cars really, although you would see the odd Mercedes-Benz. Then, in the middle of all this, comes the E-type. I just fell in love with the whole idea of it."

Although it was not destined to be the car of choice for the cinematic 007 - "It was a shame they didn't go with the Bentley, rather than that effeminate Aston Martin" - the cultural impact of the E-type as a symbol of speed, glamour and British high technology was not lost on the young Michael in a world where everyone from the fleetingly famous DJ Simon Dee (in the opening credits of his Dee Time talk show) to the 'Milk Tray Man' was availing themselves of what was then considered to be the world's most desirable sports car.

Three decades later, as one of the best-known faces (and voices) in British television newscasting-famed for his spare and powerful reporting of the dying embers of the apartheid regime in South Africa - Michael was finally in a position to realise his E-type ambitions with the fully restored, aluminium-dash 1962 fixed-head coupé pictured here.

"We came back from South Africa and picked up life here," says the trim, 78-year-old former news anchorman, "and I became a presenter, which was a bit safer. At about the same time the classic car price bubble burst, so I got this for £25,000-which was a good deal."