Driving an E-Type regularly

An E-Type that is driven regularly and maintained on the evidence of its use tends to be more reliable than one that sits. Seals stay supple, brakes stay free, fuel stays fresh and faults announce themselves while they are still small. The car was built to be driven, and sixty years on it still responds to being driven.

Warm-up and cooling down

The engines want a little mechanical sympathy: drive gently until the oil is genuinely warm, not merely until the water gauge moves, and give a hard-worked engine a minute at idle before switching off. Neither is ceremony for its own sake. Cold oil protects poorly, and heat-soak straight after a fast run is hard on gaskets and, in traffic-prone use, is where marginal cooling systems show themselves.

A routine of small checks

• Weekly or before a long run: oil, coolant, tyre pressures and a walk around the car looking for new drips.
• Monthly: brake and clutch fluid, belt condition, lights and a look underneath with a torch.
• Annually: a proper service against the workshop manual schedule, and a slow look at the known rust places while the car is in the air.

Using the car as intended

Modern traffic, modern fuel and sixty-year-old design assumptions meet most clearly in slow summer queues, so know your car's temperament and plan around it: water in the boot, a route that keeps moving, and no shame in leaving the car at home on the one day a year the motorway is a car park. Driven with that modest foresight, an E-Type is entirely capable of regular use, long tours and the odd cross-continental trip, which is, after all, what it was for.