Best in Show
Valletta Concours 2023
It was time for Valletta Concours, our yearly appointment, a festival where the most beautiful and unique cars on the island are celebrated in Malta’s Capital City, Valletta at the historic spacious St. George’s Square.
The square was filled with amazing and unique cars but it all comes down to the Best in Show award.
This award was won by Chris Cachia’s 1961 Jaguar E-Type. I cannot go into much detail as there will be a book published about it soon which Chris is working on to cover it’s detailed history and restoration, but an interesting fact is that this E-Type had a nut & bolt restoration done to it and it was the first E-Type in right-hand-drive imported into Malta.
I’ve met Chris Cachia who is an architect by profession and from our originally planned 30 minute conversation that quickly turned into an hour, I realised that he isn’t just an expert on Jaguar cars but also very passionate about it. In fact he told me that at some point the judges told him ‘You’re Judging us and not the other way around’ when they were asking him questions about his car’s little details.

You might think these were just some local judges who probably just liked classic cars but it’s not the case as Valletta Concours fly in well renowned Judges for this event every year and those assigned to Chris’s E-Type were Philip Porter, an author of more than 30 motoring and motor racing books, including a number on Jaguar and Michael Quinn, whose grandfather was Sir William Lyons, the founder of Jaguar Cars. (More about the Judges here.)
The Judges think that his E-Type had a world-class restoration done to it and they suggested Chris to take part in other European Concours competitions now, and to no surprise he’s already working on that which would probably make him the first Maltese to ever take part in such competitions abroad.


The car won Best in Show with 98/100 points! and apart from the Best in Show award, it also won in the Elegance Class and the Enemed Award.
While we were talking, I asked Chris why an E-Type? What’s so attractive about it? The straight answer was aesthetics, it’s elegant from any angle you look at it and this was all thanks to Malcolm Sayer, a pioneer of automotive aerodynamics which shaped this car, the most alluring 60’s road going designs of the era.
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