Sleeping Beauty

Off the road for more than 40 years, this original SS 100 is set for a new beginning

- Jim Patten

RARELY DO we have the opportunity to view a car in its discovered state, prior to a restoration. Usually our first sight of a car is after it has been restored back to better-than-new condition. Suffolk Sportscars, renowned for its superb SS 100 and C-type replicas, occasionally have a genuine SS 100 in stock. The most recent is a 2½-litre version, chassis number 18093, a remarkable survivor despite looking a little down at heel.

A little over 300 SS Jaguar 100s rolled off a rudimentary production line (just as Jaguar Cars was shaking off what would become the socially unacceptable SS title), and few survive intact, wearing their years as a testimony to their past.

Manufactured on May 1, 1937, registered FMT 984 and finished in black with red upholstery, chassis 18093 was despatched from Jaguar to Halls Car Sales in London’s Great Portland Street, via Henlys. Although there is no record of the original owner, the history file shows a photograph of the car at a Swiss petrol station in August 1939, which was taken by the motor racing photographer Robert Fellowes. Fellowes was travelling with the owner, said to be a Cambridge student called Monday, to photograph the 1939 Swiss Grand Prix (a walkover by the German Mercedes team, pursued by Auto Union).

Less than a year after the photograph was taken, Fellowes joined the Artists Rifles. He had reached the rank of Acting Captain when he was badly injured at El Alamein, losing one leg and the other left in bad shape. Although he seemed to recover well, even acting as a liaison officer for a propaganda film, he was to lose his life as a result of sand entering his lungs during the injury.