That would be Bernie Ecclestone. In the late 1950s, before he ruled Formula 1, he worked in the motor trade and, the story goes, when he saw the unusual red Jag sitting unsold (it was red!) at Jaguar dealer Henlys of Manchester he snapped it up.
From his office in Warren Street – London’s top people’s car trade centre at the time – Bernie didn’t waste time finding an owner for it. He sold it on in 1956 to the amateur racer Peter Blond – who immediately took it racing: to Oulton Park, Aintree, Silverstone, Snetterton and of course Goodwood, where the red car was ninth overall in the Goodwood Trophy in September of ’56.
Then began this most uncommon D-Type’s distinguished racing career, one that continued via other successful owner-racers like Jean Bloxham into the 1960s. Later owners included Peter Grant, manager of Led Zeppelin, and a succession of keepers in the US after the car crossed the pond in 1982.
Today the car’s unbroken provenance and stand-out appearance – as our pictures show, in red you really do have to look twice to see that it is a D-Type – have made it one of the most original and well documented of the 53 customer D-Types made.