A very special Jaguar stops by West Berks pub

A very special car with a unique pedigree stopped by for lunch at The Bell at Aldworth on Wednesday.

Adrian Massey’s Series 1 Jaguar XJ was one of the earliest of the luxury car series ever built. It was a hand-built pre-production model.

“There were 20 pre-production cars made when Jaguar were still devising how the production line should be constructed,” explained Mr Massey.

“Many of them got crash tested and destroyed, but this one got put on the road. It was the first XJ that Jaguar road registered, so it was the first on the road on August 1, 1968.”

The car spent a year with the Jaguar marketing department, going off on promotion to the continent and was photographed with the then supermodel and actress Veruschka, in Spain.

After another year with the research and development team under the legendary Jaguar test driver and works racer Norman Dewis, it was sold on to the public which, Mr Massey said, was “remarkable really, because it was very non-street car in some ways – not a prototype car, but not far off”.

“And it’s still here 55 years later,” he added. “So it’s the oldest survivor as well.”

Having owned it for 13 years, Mr Massey considers his job is to curate the car, “to keep it going without interfering with it where possible, because the real appeal of the car to Jaguar fans is its history, its originality”.

He was joined at the CAMRA award-winning pub by fellow XJ Series 1 enthusiasts Alan Pearce in the “rolling restoration” project he bought in 2010, and Daimler Sovereign owners Mark Sutherland and Neil Powell. An upmarket version of the Series 1 was marketed under the Daimler brand as the Daimler Sovereign, continuing the name from the Daimler version of the Jaguar 420.

There will be an informal meet of classic cars and motorbikes at The Bell from noon on Sunday, September 3.