Jaguar SS1 in Burma.

On a day which marks the 50th anniversary of the unveiling of Jaguar's iconic E Type sports car, I thought that I would hark back to an even earlier sports car of theirs - the SS1

These photographs were taken in Rangoon, Burma, in 1972 and show the car owned by Eric Minus, who was a Burman of Armenian descent. I'm not sure who the original owner was, but Eric told me that during World War II, the car was hidden throughout the Japanese occupation.

By any standards this was a rare car, as only about 200 were produced between 1932 to 1935.

Weighing over a ton, it was a heavy car and this, coupled with the fact of it having only a 2143 cc engine, meant that as new it could only achieve a top speed of about 89 mph. You could say that its looks were faster than the car itself.

The car was already 37 years old by the time that I drove in it, but it was still an impressive auto, especially in Burma, where the Burmese Road to Socialism had not encouraged the proliferation of private cars.

I have often wondered what happened to the car and whether it still travels the dusty roads in Myanmar even today?