E-Type

Stratstone has been revealed as the owner of one of the famous 2015 Jaguar Lightweight E-types. Chassis number 15 is one of the infamous ‘Missing Six’ and didn’t have to travel far from the iconic Jaguar Browns Lane production facility in Coventry as it made its way to its new base at Stratstone Jaguar London in Mayfair. The fascinating story of the Lightweight E-type dates back to February 1963 and the intended 18-car ‘Special GT E-type’ race car project from that time. Only 12 of the 18 were built and delivered by the Browns Lane competitions department between 1963 and 1964, which gave rise to the infamous ‘Missing Six’. These missing chassis numbers – 13 to 18 – were found in 2014, and so the modern-day production by Jaguar Land Rover’s new Special Vehicle Operations division’s Jaguar Classic, got underway.

A 1963 Jaguar E-Type found under a hedge in the village of Bisley in Surrey sold for £58,000 at COYS Spring Classics auction in London. Chris Routledge, CEO of international auctioneers COYS, said: “We were encouraged by strong results achieved across the board and the number of registered bidders joining us and bidding in the room – it’s always good to see the market is as active as ever.” He added: “The derelict E-Type attracted attention from all four corners of the world and bidders in a packed auction room and via telephone fought fiercely for it on Tuesday night. It ended up going to an English collector and Beatles enthusiast who plans to slowly restore it to its former glory.” The E-Type showed just 44,870miles on the clock and still had the last tax disc on the windscreen which […]

The E-Type that turned heads at the 1961 Scottish Motor Show has been brought back to its former glory by world-leading restorers Classic Motor Cars (CMC) and will feature centre stage at CMC’s stand (C40) at the London Classic Car Show on February 18-21. Chassis No. 15 was the fifteenth right-hand drive fixed head coupe E-Type to leave Jaguar’s production line in 1961 and was used as a press car at the Scottish Motor Show held at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, in November that year. The car then moved on to private ownership and went missing for decades until CMC discovered it in a barn in Cernay, France, in late 2013. Exactly 2,956hrs were spent restoring every nut and bolt of this E-Type at CMC’s modern workshops in Bridgnorth, saving as much of the original car as possible and bringing […]

Renowned antique and collectible appraisers and stars of PBS’s long running Antiques Roadshow, the Keno Brothers staged their inaugural collector car auction, Rolling Sculpture, in New Your City’s vibrant SoHo district on November 19. Leigh and Leslie Keno, also known for their judging of Pebble Beach’s annual Concours d’Elegance, have almost single-handedly raised preservation class automobiles to their current status. Passionate for provenance, originality and authenticity, the finely-curated auction featured cars with impeccable history and documentation.

Barons is set to become the first UK classic car auction house to feature a lady auctioneer when Helen Gascoigne brings the hammer down on a selection of lots, assisting Barons’ long-standing auctioneer Fabian Hine at the Yuletide Classic Sale at Sandown Park on December 15th. The daughter of Barons director Peter Gascoigne, 33 year-old Helen is a senior lawyer by profession but is adding another string to her bow by combining her love of classic cars and knowledge of the family business to embark on learning the classic car auction trade.  In a year of ‘firsts’ for Barons, which has included the company twice setting its highest-ever price for a car sold at auction, it is only fitting that the season ends with another first, not just for Barons, but for all specialist UK classic car houses; the introduction […]

The all-original and complete set of body panels for the Series 1 Jaguar E-type and selected parts of Series 2 and 3, are now available to order from Jaguar Heritage Parts. In order to provide world-class quality for E-type customers, Jaguar’s skilled technicians and engineers employed state-of-the-art scanning technology to digitally map every inch of an E-type in 3D. Once scanned, the highly detailed scans are transferred to CAD images to create a complete and virtual model of the car to ensure perfect panel alignment. The exact dimensions and shapes of the inner and outer surfaces and recorded to within a fraction of a millimetre. Once the entire car is digitally mapped, Jaguar Heritage is then able to test the quality and accuracy of each panel plus the original tooling used to make it.  Each part is meticulously measured on […]

1961 Jaguar E-Type chassis 860001, the very first right-hand-drive production Fixed Head Coupé restored by Classic Motor Cars Ltd (CMC), has been driven to 146 mph on a German autobahn by British Hill Climb Champion, David Franklin. David was recreating for Octane magazine’s 150th issue one of the most famous road tests ever undertaken, attempting to match the 150 mph a Jaguar E-Type reached on a Belgian motorway in 1961, and he nearly made it! David said: “I saw 146mph and it was still accelerating when I had to back off because of cars and lorries in the distance. When you’re travelling at that speed you have to err on the side of caution. You’re catching other traffic up quite quickly and you have to remember that there’s no ABS, although the brakes felt strong and progressive.It would comfortably have […]

The Jaguar E-type has added yet another award to its enviable roll of honour after being voted as Best British Car Ever in a worldwide poll run by the inaugural Classic & Sportscar – The London Show, running from 30 October to 1 November at Alexandra Palace. With thousands of votes cast, the E-type garnered the most votes of the shortlisted cars that also included the McLaren F1, Mini, Bentley Speed Six, Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost plus other British icons such as the original Range Rover and Jaguar’s own XKSS.

The sixtieth E-Type to leave Jaguar’s production line in 1961 went back to Somerset to surprise its previous owner on his 83rd birthday after undergoing a full ‘nut and bolt’ restoration at leading restorers Classic Motor Cars of Bridgnorth (CMC). When former Royal Naval Commander Bob Reed put his pride and joy, a rare Jaguar E-Type into auction little did he expect that it would sell for £109,000 or that it would be purchased by someone who would spend substantially more than the purchase price to bring it back to its former glory. Bob bought the car in February 1965 and owned it for more than 45 years, raced it and only decided to sell it because he couldn’t afford to restore it and didn’t want to see it deteriorate further.

Voting is hotting up in a new global poll by Classic & Sports Car magazine to find the best British car of all time, with the much-loved Jaguar E-type taking a narrow lead with just a few weeks to go until the poll closes. Once referred to as the most beautiful car ever by Enzo Ferrari, the E-type is just edging out its nearest rival, the Mini Cooper S, but with polls at www.classicandsportscarshow.com open until 1st August, there’s every chance that lead could change hands.

Our video this week takes us all the way back to the Jaguars of 1961. Back when the E-Type was just rolling off the line and the Jaguar Mark II was still a new car. “One Leap Ahead” is a tour of the Coventry factory. It is amazing to see so many of these cars in one place, much less in production and in perfect condition. For big cats that are so seldom seen in the wild today, they seem to be plentiful in their natural habit in this video. Certainly does make one wish for a TARDIS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGCrtmFJbUY If the behind the scenes story of manufacturing like this is your thing, you might also want to check out the book “Jaguar in Coventry: Building the Legend” by Nigel Thornley. This illustrated history offers a fascinating insight into the company […]

This early Jaguar E-Type Series 1, on display at the recent Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance, was restored in 2012 after sitting dormant for nearly 20 years. It belongs to George Hervert of Pompano Beach, Florida. Since its restoration, it has received excellence in class and received various other awards at the Boca Raton Winter Park Concours. It was also featured by Jaguar of North America in the debut of their new F-Type. The Series 1 was introduced, initially for export only, in March 1961. The domestic market launch came four months later in July 1961. The cars at this time used the triple SU carburetted 3.8 litre six-cylinder Jaguar XK6 engine from the XK150S. Earlier built cars utilised external bonnet latches which required a tool to open and had a flat floor design. These cars are rare and more valuable. After that, […]

News Release From Jaguar Land Rover about the new, beyond drool-worthy, lightweight E-Type coupe. I don’t even want to begin to think about how much these are going to cost. Or how long the line will be to get one. http://youtu.be/1TpVl9xTt7A Jaguar has revealed the prototype of its ‘new’ Lightweight E-type – a further six of which will be built and sold. Jaguar announced in May 2014 that it would recreate six new Lightweights, each built by Jaguar Heritage, part of Jaguar Land Rover’s new Special Operations division. Each of the six cars will be built to a specification originated from the last Lightweight E-type produced in 1964 and will be hand-crafted at the original home of the E-type, Jaguar’s Browns Lane plant in Coventry, England. The cars will be sold as period competition vehicles and all will be suitable […]

The people at Lyonheart, a startup based in Coventry, England, have continued to develop their new sports car, whose lines were penned by designers at Vizualtech and Classic Factory and have clearly been inspired by the Jaguar E-Type. While only 50 examples were originally planned, at a price of almost half a million euros a piece, strong demand has seen Lyonheart revise this figure to 250 units, which meant prices could also be revised downwards thanks to greater economies of scale. At the same time, strong demand has also seen Lyonheart announce a new convertible version of its new K sports car. Pricing is now set at 360,000 euros (approximately $464,000) for the coupe, and 375,000 euros ($483,500) for the convertible. For full details, check out the article on Motor Authority.

Jaguar revealed the F-TYPE, an all-new convertible sports car at an event in Paris late last month. The new Jaguar F-TYPE represents a return to the company’s heartland: a two-seat, convertible sports car focused on delivering performance, agility and maximum driver engagement. The F-TYPE is a continuation of a sporting bloodline that stretches back more than 75 years and encompasses a heritage of beautiful, thrilling and desirable cars. The car was revealed in front of the dramatic setting of the 18th century Musee Rodin. Following the reveal, singer Lana Del Rey took to the stage and performed a new track ‘Burning Desire,’ that she has written as part of her collaboration with Jaguar for the launch of the F-TYPE. The track is confirmed to be the soundtrack to a short film that is being produced in association with Ridley Scott […]

I was one of those people very disappointed by the Jaguar XJS, the car that replaced the E-Type Jag when it came out in the mid-Seventies. To me, it wasn’t a sports car at all, but more of a boulevard cruiser. Since then, there have been sporting Jaguars, for sure, but no real sports car. The E-Type is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful cars of all time, so making something as gorgeous again is an incredibly difficult task. But 50 years on from the creation of the E-Type, Jaguar has come closer than ever to matching its beauty. Its latest model, though, the C-X16, which is being shown in Frankfurt at the moment, has all the styling clues of a Jaguar sports car and especially the E-Type. I love the rear end; the twin exhausts look great, as do […]

The speed and elegance of one of motoring’s iconic cars of all time — the sleek Jaguar E-Type — reveals itself as the inspiration for the official poster art of the 2011 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Jaguar is this year’s featured marque and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the E-Type at the annual gathering of historic race and sports cars to be held August 19-21 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca during the Monterey Classic Car Week. Renowned artist Bill Patterson, who is the official artist of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, says the E-Type is true art on wheels. “Having fallen in love with racing and fast cars in the ’60s, the E-Type represented the perfect blend of design, technology, performance and sex appeal. It still looks fantastic today, 50 years after it was first produced. And to have been […]

Jaguar may resurrect its legendary E-Type sports car. The British motoring icon is tipped to revive the true two-seater sports car to take on the Italian and German sports cars. The most loved of the Jag family was built in the Swinging England period of 1961 to 1974. With its performance, handling and modern looks it was a huge sales success and is still a highly sought collector’s car. Even Enzo Ferrari said it was the most beautiful car ever made.