Jaguar E-Type

Jaguar does not build many cars like the Jaguar E-Type with gasoline engine, built from 1961 to 1974 in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. Its designer of record is Malcolm Sayer.

The background

The Jaguar E-Type, or the Jaguar XK-E for the North American market, is a British front-engined sports car that was manufactured by Jaguar Cars Ltd from 1961 to 1974. Its sleek appearance, advanced technologies, high performance, and competitive pricing established it as an icon. The E-Type's claimed 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) top speed, sub-7-second 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) acceleration, largely unitary body construction, front and rear independent suspension with disc brakes, mounted inboard at the rear, and rack-and-pinion steering spurred industry-wide changes. The E-Type was based on Jaguar's D-Type racing car, which had won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for three consecutive years beginning in 1955.

The E-Type employed what was, for the early 1960s, a novel design principle, with a front subframe carrying the engine, front suspension and front bodywork bolted directly to the body tub. No ladder frame chassis, as was common at the time, was needed and as such the first cars weighed only 1,315 kg (2,899 lb). It is rumored that, at its debut on 15 March 1961, Enzo Ferrari called it "the most beautiful car ever made", but this statement has not been fully confirmed. In 2004, Sports Car International magazine placed the E-Type at number one on their list of Top Sports Cars of the 1960s. In March 2008, the Jaguar E-Type ranked first in The Daily Telegraph's online list of the world's "100 most beautiful cars" of all time.

The engineering

Under the skin sits gasoline engine. The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.

Where it sits

Where it sits in Jaguar's history is not in doubt: the Jaguar D-Type / Jaguar XK150 / Jaguar XKSS came before it; the Jaguar XJ-S followed it; it was built at Coventry, United Kingdom. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Volvo P1800, the Alfa Romeo Giulia, the Ferrari 250 GTO. Its Jaguar stablemates include the F-Type and the Vanden Plas.

The money

There is no federal ownership record for the Jaguar E-Type — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.