"You know what, it's only E-Type Jaguars and Sebastian Coe that make me feel proud to be British today”.
Those were the words of Only Fools and Horses character Boycie as he showed Del Boy and Rodney Trotter the new white convertible he'd bought as a birthday present for his ‘bit on the side' in an early episode of the TV hit series.
Now, the car that featured in the second rendition of the BBC's 80s comedy is for sale. The 1973 Series III ‘white-alpine' E-Type Jaguar Roadster will go under the hammer at the Silverstone Auctions Salon Privé sale on September 3 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire with an estimation of $135,000 to $153,000. It's instantly recognisable from the series one show titled Go West Young Man.
Fearing his wife will spot the car and uncover his cheating ways, Boycie, played by John Challis, lets Del Boy (David Jason) hide the car in a garage for a week. But in a ruse to attract women in London's West End clubs, Rodney, played by Nicholas Lyndhurst, tempts his brother into driving into the capital in the sports car.
In a moment of comedy gold, Del Boy slams on the brakes when the pair are driving home after Rodney announces that, a couple of kilometres back, he's thrown out the cigar packet with the phone numbers of two women they'd met earlier that evening.
The E-Type is then rear-ended by a dodgy Ford Cortina MkII Crayford Convertible with faulty brakes the pair had sold to an Australian earlier that day.
Of course, the crash was staged, with the E-Type suffering no damage. In fact, it's in near pristine condition today, despite covering 79,000 miles in total, and has spent the last10 years in storage in a heated garage. The car also comes with a framed die-cast model of the E-Type signed by Jason and Challis
-Daily Mail