The E-Type Series 3, with Jaguar's magnificent 5.3-litre V12 under that impossibly long bonnet — an engine so smooth, so sonorous, so effortlessly authoritative that it rendered almost everything else on the road irrelevant. The 2+2 configuration added two rear seats, a longer wheelbase, and a roofline that gave the E-Type a new register entirely — the grand tourer for the man who wanted the world's most desirable car and somewhere to put his children. It is a remarkably successful compromise, which is to say it feels like no compromise at all.

This example, in deep navy blue — a colour that invites you to lose yourself in its curves, shifting from near-black in shadow to a rich, saturated depth in direct light — is among the most compelling colour treatments the E-Type can wear. The high-lustre chrome work, in the manner only the 1970s truly understood, catches every available light source and throws it back with a confidence that is entirely, unapologetically of its era. Together, the dark bodywork and gleaming brightwork create a visual tension that a lens finds irresistible — in studio or on location, in colour or monochrome.

For campaigns that demand beauty as their primary language — fashion, fragrance, luxury travel, premium spirits, or any brief where the visual must do the talking before a single word is read — the E-Type V12 2+2 needs no introduction. It simply needs to be in the frame.