Mud, madness and the birthday of a British icon

HERE'S a date you probably haven't got scrawled into your diary - this week, believe it or not, is Jaguar's 75th birthday.

So far, the Coventry company's survived The Blitz, the ravages of several recessions and even the worst British Leyland can throw at it, which a couple of Life On Cars-reading mates and I thought was worth celebrating. Until we saw the mud.

The idea was brilliant; take a rotten Jag with a touch too many miles on the clock to a dirt track in Prestatyn, put up against a field of more mundane motors in a six-hour endurance race, and watch it win with style. Admittedly, the 19-year-old XJ40 we'd picked wasn't one of the Big Cat's proudest moments, but it's still a car from a company with seven Le Mans wins, a string of rally victories and a slightly successful F1 team to its name. We couldn't lose.

Unfortunately, the race took place on the same drenched day Southport's Air Show got cancelled, meaning the track was a quagmire of squelch and mud even Range Rover owners would think twice about tackling. The race commentator, sat snugly in his caravan, put in perfectly as the field of Micras, Polos and Escorts raced past; we were driving 3.2 litres of pure wheelspin.

I never thought I'd say this, but the Jag was just too big and too powerful, and with no grip we spent most of the time powersliding pointlessly as cars your mum used for the school run ten years ago tore ahead. We were losing, but because we were in a Jag, we were losing with style.

Our muddy outing is about as far from Jaguar's string of Le Mans as you can possibly imagine, but I loved every minute of each chaotic lap, made more terrifying still because the steering wheel seemed to have little to no influence over where the big Jag was heading. It was a rubbish and yet utterly brilliant addition to Jaguar's proud motorsport pedigree.

And here's the best bit; unlike the cocky whippersnappers who laughed every time their machines lapped ours, the Jag actually crossed the finish line, even if it was sliding sideways at walking pace. We might have been a long way off winning but we did the entire event, to quote an old Jag ad slogan, with grace, space and pace. A fitting tribute to the Big Cat, then.

The maker of Britain's most beautiful cars is 75 years old, and we found a smashing way to mark the occasion. Literally.