SIXTY years on ... its creation

The E-Type was the creation of one person - aerodynamacist Malcolm Sayer. He was immensley private and secretive with his work, and was also a multi-talented artist and musician.

- LES. HUGHES

MALCOLM SAYER IS A LEGEND to those who know of him. While we commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the E-Type's unveiling at Geneva it presents the opportunity to introduce this reclusive, secretive and brilliant man. He changed the entire engineering status of not just Jaguars, but it has to be said, all racing cars through to today.

Sayer didn't set out to impress or reshape the world in which he worked, that came about purely as a result of his methodology and brilliant mind. That too is how we eventually got to the E-Type which set the motoring world on its ear in 1961!

So as the song goes - let's start at the very beginning.

It is important to do that because his entire working career at Jaguar Cars is interlinked with his family background.

Malcolm came into the world at Cromer, Norfolk in 1916. He was educated at Great Yarmouth Grammar School where his father taught maths and art, setting up the obvious framing point for young Malcolm's future.

At the age of 17 he won the prestigious Empire Scholarship, and attended Loughborough College (later Loughborough University) in its Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering. He earned first class honours there.

His first job was with the Bristol Aeroplane Company during WW2. He didn't see active service because, understandably, his was a reserved occupation.

Immediately after WW2 he worked for de Havilland then Bristol again.