ONE MAN'S ENDEAVOUR

This Jaguar Mk1 has been developed to a high pitch over the last 27 years of ownership. And it became a crime-busting TV star on the way, as Robert Coucher discovers

- Robert Coucher

You know when you spot a really good motor car at 50 yards. I don't mean some flashy, over-restored boiled sweet; I mean a car that is honest, straight and clean, and the demeanour and stance of which tell you that it's a well-sorted piece of kit that's going to be good to drive.

I was at Jaguar specialist Twyford Moors in Hampshire a couple of months ago and spied this attractive Jaguar Mk1 parked on the forecourt. So I went and introduced myself to the owner. It turns out that Anthony Gilsenan has been the custodian of this 1959 Jaguar for 27 years and has subjected it to a continuous, rolling restoration. Ah, a long-term, committed owner - this sporting Jaguar is probably going to prove even better than it looks.

SIR WILLIAM LYONS was in the motor-manufacturing business to make money. He was a notorious penny-pincher, cutting costs wherever he could. That meant he produced motor cars at affordable prices, but his real genius was that the cars were beautifully styled and extremely well engineered. Motor racing, Le Mans success and sexy sports cars grabbed the headlines and were all good fun, but Lyons' mission was to produce in volume and the saloon car segment was where that lay compact, aspirational saloons aimed at the burgeoning middle-class driver.

He'd had success with Jaguar saloons since the late '30s, cars such as the 1.5, 3.5 and later 2.5-Litre and the huge MkVII, but with the arrival of the Jaguar 2.4 saloon in 1955 (the Mk1 nomenclature was used retrospectively after the Mk2 appeared in 1959) he introduced another game-changer for Jaguar: unitary construction. The 2.4, joined by a 3.4 in 1957, was the first roadgoing Jaguar freed from an old-fashioned separate chassis.