The Missing Six. Sounds like something out of the Enid Blyton collection, but it is in fact the romantic tale of half-a-dozen (or so) forgotten E-type Lightweight ‘Special GTs’. Cars that should have enjoyed their moment in the sun six decades ago, racing proudly in the hands of wealthy privateers, turning heads on rivieras, testing their engineering limitations at Le Mans and making road-racing around the continent seem commonplace. But they didn’t.

The first of Jaguar’s E-type Lightweights certainly enjoyed that lifestyle, but the final third remained just a collection of chassis numbers buried in the company’s vaults, until 2014.

To get to the point of their rebirth, let’s rewind to the early 1960s. Jaguar’s E-type was in full flow. Britain’s answer to the sporting coupés of Europe stood strong against the might of Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche and more, offering equal or better performance for less money, plus striking looks that led even Enzo Ferrari himself to proclaim the E-type as “the most beautiful car ever made”. Quite something coming from the creator of some of the greatest sports machines in history.