The Team

Meet the Team

Keith Parrington

Growing up surrounded by XJ Jaguar cars owned by his father, a career with Jaguars was almost guaranteed. 

Upon leaving school, Keith served his apprenticeship under the watchful eye of Mr John Castell at CMC motor engineering, Uckfield, East Sussex. The focus was on the restoration of E-types and MK2’s, and the service and repair of XJ models. It was here that Keith first carried out work on MWK 28G - chassis number 19 of the XJ range - the oldest surviving XJ, with incredible history.

 

At the age of 20, Keith set up in business with his farther supplying XJ parts worldwide under the name XjJaguar Ltd. With restoration still very much part of everyday life, the work carried out on his own 2.8ltr Daimler brought the attention of prospective customers. The workshop soon filled with restoration work.

 

In 2006, at the age of 25, Keith set up on his own as XjRestorations – specializing in the restoration of XJ models. As the reputation grew, the work expanded to all Jaguar models, including modern service and repair work. By 2009, the company had outgrown its 1000sq ft farm based premises and moved to a new 2000sq ft development in Eastbourne.

 

As an active member of the local JEC, Keith was asked to act as coordinator for the newly form XJ Series model Forum of the JEC. This role has brought many strong contacts and contacts with some rare and unusual XJ models.

John Sawyer

John joined XjRestorations Ltd in July 2010.

John brought with him a wealth of experiance and knowledge, having worked for both Lynx and Jaguar Heritage.

John is well known in Jaguar circles, having worked extensively with Mike Hawthorns Le Mans winning D-type - 393 RW (John is pictured below at the wheel of 393 RW). His work with the car has included full engine rebuild and service and maintanance work to keep the car competitve at events such as Goodwood and the Mille Miglia. John has followed the car, amongst others, around the world over the past 10 years offering full hands on race support.

Some of Johns history first hand :

''I have been involved with the classic car world for 20 years or more.

It started when I joined Lynx Engineering in Hastings where over a period of
about 18 months I was responsible for the restoration of the ex Yamaha Ford
GT40 and the race preparation of the car. Also with my time at Lynx I
was involved with the lost Lightweight E-type which was shipped over from America,(the Gidovlenko car – chassis S850660)


After about 3 years with Lynx I moved onto CKL in Dalington where I was
involved with many projects including putting D-type Jaguars back to
original spec, and the XK race series and Goodwood revival - with many named
drivers.

I also went to Italy for the Millie Miglia whilst working for CKL.
I then moved onto Jaguar Heritage where my first job was to go to Dresden
in Germany to support the Sachsen Classic with the prototype short nose D-
type.

I attended many events, which included the Millie Miglia of which I have
done 16 times as support, Reims, Lemans 24 hour, Pebble Beach Concourse, Californian
speedway (where I demonstrated XJ13), Goodwood - both the Revival and the
Festival of Speed, the Swiss GP in Bern again with a large selection of
Heritage cars NUB120,C-type ,D-type XJ13), and many more.

Whilst with Jaguar, I was responsible for the maintenance of the 2 D-types, C-types and many of their other cars. As part of the team I was privileged  to drive all of the
collection
I was also on the launch team for Jaguar for the launch of there new cars
XKR in Sevil, XF diesel in Provance, and the new XJ in Paris.''

 

 

Pippa Bowley

A camera shy Pippa keeps our office and admin in check. It is most likely that Pippa will be your first point of contact when calling the office, and the face to great you on site!