A few months back Jaguar raised all of our spirits with the news that they would fulfill the original build order of 18 E-Type lightweights (only 12 were build in period) to the original specification, from aluminum bodywork to D-type heads. Recently the team has released these photos of the first complete example of the new run and it is absolutely beautiful.
Jaguar’s original plan was to build 18 E-Type lightweights, but ultimately only 12 were built. In the years since, 2 were converted to low-drag bodywork and one is (currently) considered too damaged to rebuild. That makes 9. For fifty years, those 9 cars had to be enough and today they are among the most coveted GT racers in the world. A handful of workshops have made a decent business of reproducing lightweight specification parts—and even turnkey replicas. Now Jaguar has decided to finally follow through on the original build order and make the remaining “missing” 6 lightweights.
This is a project I can really get behind. The Coventry Racers project hopes to locate and catalog every Jaguar C-Type, D-Type, E-Type Lightweight and XKSS; both those that are still gathering concours and racing trophies, and those that haven’t survived. The open nature of the Coventry Racers project is its real appeal.
Unlike secret catalogs of cars that dealers and collectors use to track down potential purchases, the Coventry Racers project is managed, Wiki-style, by the public at large. These contributors offer their own photographs, accounts of car locations, and articles about particular examples. All of these are sorted by serial number, and help to build a complete repository of information on each and every example of these cars. What a wonderful resource for sportscar nerds (like myself) who just want to read about these tremendous cars, and for collectors who want any bit of information on their example to increase the provenance of their vehicles—before or after purchase.
I’ve included a photo here that I shot at the July 2008 VSCDA Continental Grand Prix at Autobahn Country Club this past July. This was one of two D-Types at the event. While neither raced, it was fantastic to see these remarkable cars out at the track. One of these cars actually sees a bit of road time, the owner drove the Jag to the track, and shared a story of driving it up to Elkhart Lake as well—perhaps a 2-hour highway drive in a car that I’m sure drew quite a bit of attention on the freeway.