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At some point in the late 1960s or early 1970s, the Tourist Trophy Garage, by then sold and no longer related to Mike Hawthorn, recovered the wreck of a Jaguar E-type, registration 5600 RW. You can see from the images here that it was beyond hope - at least we hope no one resurrected it!



Mike Ellis told us the story behind how it got wrecked:

"A friend, Dave Westwood, worked at the TT garage from about 1964 to when John Adams closed it, first as a mechanic then foreman and he told me about it.

"It was either late 60s or possibly early 70s and the car had been stolen. The thief was driving towards Farnham on the old A31 through Runfold when a police car came up behind with lights flashing but they were going somewhere else and didn't know the car was stolen. Naturally the thief thought they were after him and accelerated. Apparently speeds of up to 100mph were reached which was too fast to negotiate Junction Bridge (long since gone) and the Jag crashed.

"The thief managed to escape and the car was brought into the TT Garage. The reason the car broke into three pieces was not just the speed of impact but the fact that there was a lot of corrosion in the monocoque."