Riding Eternity: The Jaguar E-Type and Its Place in Auto History
The Jaguar car company’s history dates back to September 1922 when the Swallow Sidecar Company was founded by William Lyons and William Walmsley in Blackpool, Lancashire, located in Northwest England. The two partners did well with few resources in building up their firm. In the middle of the ’30s, Lyons went ahead with a plan to design motor carriages and roadsters. The line of automobiles were titled SS Jaguars, and the name would later be applied to the company itself after the SS acronym, shared with the Nazi military units, was dropped. The corporation would be formally known as Jaguar Cars, Ltd.
After the chaos of the Second World War had ended, Lyons went ahead with the development of new cars for the UK market. It was his new sports car, called the XK120, that set the global standard in sports car development. The car debuted in 1948 to rave reviews. Under its hood was the XK engine, a 3.4 L L-6 that had an official output of 160 hp. The XK120 astonished the motor press with its sheer speed. The car could achieve 126 mph, but a test run without the windscreen had the car hitting 133 mph. The XK120’s price tag came to just Ã?£1,000 (minus taxes, of course).
The 1950s saw Jaguar’s status in European motoring rise. The XK120 influenced auto engineers and designers not normally associated with sporting vehicles to build their own fast roadsters. Chevrolet produced the Corvette, while Ford introduced the Thunderbird – both became American icons, and both were inspired by the XK120’s blend of speed and luxury. For Jaguar, the XK120 created a dilemma. Would the future model be more of a sports car, or more of a grand touring coupe? The XK120 was a hybrid of the two, but motoring standards were being raised quickly by concerted efforts by rival manufacturers.
Jaguar split its sporty cars into two separate paths. The XK series would continue with the larger, roomier, and pricier 140 and 150 editions. For the track, Jaguar would create a line of race cars built specially for the continental events. The first run of XK120s in Le Mans went poorly, so the engineers went to work modifying them by reducing weight, altering the shape for aerodynamics, and raising engine power. The XK120C, better remembered as the C-Type, was the result of the XK120’s racing modifications. The D-Type, which appeared in racing in the middle of the 1950s, was more exotic in its shape and bold in its structure. The D-Type’s odd appearance did nothing to dim the glory Jaguar had with wins both in Le Mans and Monte Carlo in 1956.
Jaguar went to work building a new sports car that would be suited both for the track and the street. The XKSS, more of a street-legal D-Type, was assembled that same year. Only sixteen XKSSs were built when a factory fire in 1957 destroyed the castings for the car. The fire delayed the launch of Jaguar’s important saloons, and the XKSS was canned, and so was the factory racing effort. But the desire to create a new XK sports car would not die, just put to a short rest.
Four years would pass before the child of the XKSS would be born, and it’s birth would be part the height of British society in the twentieth century. In a decade when England saw unseen levels of creativity from writers, musicians, and poets, Jaguar’s new sports car would find itself fitting in perfectly. The car was called the E-Type, and it made its debut in Geneva at the city’s 1961 auto salon. One month later, the E-Type (marketed as the XKE) hit New York City appearing alongside Marilyn Hanold, Playboy magazine’s Miss June 1959.
The E-Type took its front-end styling from the XKSS, a welcome trait to inherit from a car so revered. The car was available as either a coupe or a cabriolet. Both cars appeared longer than they really were (14.6 ft.), thanks to the long nose. The E-Type was actually small by American standards, being 2 in. shorter in length than the Corvette and the cabrio 270 lbs. lighter. At nearly 2,800 lbs. for the cabrio and 2,900 for the coupe, the E-Type was heavy by British sports car standards. Criticism aside, the E-Type was warmly greeted on both sides of the Atlantic. The car’s looks were seen as a step ahead, letting go of the classical appearance the XK150, its predecessor, had maintained.
The motoring press was equally fascinated from what was under the car’s sheetmetal. The E-Type used a monocoque body configuration, a technique that was rising in use in the auto world. Monocoque setups use the external body of an object to support the structure, as opposed to the traditional body and frame being separate and joined together. The excellent bodywork can be attributed to Malcolm Sayer, the acclaimed British aerodynamicist. An independent rear suspension (done by Bob Knight), was installed, enabling a better ride and handling. An aluminum 3.8 L six-cylinder (L-6) motor (taken from the XK150) was under the hood, placed within a subframe. All-wheel disc brakes finished off the package. Some areas of contention were the uncomfortable bucket seats and aged gearbox.
The E-Type made for a striking deal. Priced at $5,700 for the cabriolet and $5,900 for the coupe, the E may not have been cheap, but it was hardly in the same cost arena as some of the Italian and West German competition. For the beauty and luxury, the E-Type was a bargain compared to previous landmark European sports cars and grand tourers that reached the five-figure range. The smooth roofline of the fixed coupe, crafted by Bob Blake, would lend itself to future hardtops, including the Studebaker Avanti and the Datsun 240Z.
There was a brief effort to send the E-Type into professional racing. Private entries were made at the 1962 Le Mans event. Three cars were entered, but only two finished in fourth (driven by Briggs Cunningham and Roy Salvadori) and fifth places (Peter Lumsden and Peter Sargent). A small number of lightweight coupes were built, stripped down to 2,100 lbs and equipped with fuel-injected engines. Twelve lightweights were all that were built, a direct response to Enzo Ferrari’s 250 GTOs. After a hopeful effort in Sebring, the racing effort ended in failure in Le Mans, 1963. One car was retired because of gearbox issues, another crashed, and the remaining one finished in ninth place.
Production Es had a better fate, albeit one that was not without change. A four-passenger “2 + 2” coupe was made available for 1966, having the luxury of an automatic transmission. Jaguar installed a new four-speed gearbox, a 4.2 L L-6 engine, and replaced the aluminum dash with a black one to reduce light reflection. The 1968 models, referred to by historians as the 1.5 Series, saw a Stromberg carburetor replace the SU, rocker switches instead of toggle ones, and glass headlight covers removed. Most modifications were done for the purpose of meeting stricter US safety and emissions standards that were coming into play. Consumer advocates and safety czars were launching a fierce effort to increase the safety and cleanliness of the automobile, and every component of the machine was under inspection. The Series II E-Types rounded off the decade with power-steering, larger bumpers, a wider fascia, a new optional air conditioning system, and a revised taillight configuration.
The most radical change came for the Series III cars that came out for 1971. The Mk. III came out at a crucial time. US emissions standards were affecting the whole industry. American manufacturers were having to preserve the speed and power their coupes had become known for with larger and heavier engines. European automakers responded in the same way. Jaguar’s latest E-Type had a 5.3 L V-12, the strongest engine by far. New stopping power was made with front vented disc brakes. The two-seat coupe was gone, leaving only the two-seat cabriolet and the four-seat coupe. The new V-12 gave the car the speed critics had been complaining about for years. The E was a symbol for a new era when it came out in 1961; but that was not the case in 1971. To the generation in the 1970s, he car was old, a relic from a bygone and foolishly optimistic time. The coupe ended its life in 1973. The cabriolet continued on to the next year with either an automatic or manual transmission. The price for the cabrio ended at $9,200, a $700 jump from the previous year.
While the E-Type could not continue new, it did live on well in the hearts of true car enthusiasts. Collectors maintained their interest, as the E-Type fell back into popular acclaim. By the 2000s, top-option Mk. Is and V-12 cabriolets were hitting $100,000.
The British motoring industry had a hard time in the 1970s and ’80s. Companies now had to deal with rising costs and falling demand in their biggest markets. Jaguar became part of the British Motor Company in 1966, forming British Motor Holdings. British Motor Holdings and the Leyland Motor Company merged in 1968. The British state pushed car companies to join in the government-formed conglomerate as a way to preserve the country’s domestic manufacturing force and resist foreign encroachment. The move was done mostly to appease the powerful labor unions.
The decision was a tragic one. British/Leyland’s subsidiaries were in intense rivalry, creating an atmosphere of mistrust. The aim of resisting foreign takeover failed. If anything, the formation of British/Leyland hastened it. Jaguar became independent once more in 1986, only to find itself trying to stay afloat with deteriorating quality and rising debts. The Ford Motor Company bought the firm in 1989. British/Leyland collapsed in the 1990s, with its remnants bought out by American, Chinese, and German enterprises.
Jaguar followed up the E-Type with the XJS, a four-seat grand tourer that kept the V-12 and retailed for $19,000 in 1976. The sporty XJS would last until 1996, ending as a $62,000 cabrio. Jaguar would not build a sports car until the XJ220. It debuted in Birmingham in 1988, using the styling cues from the XJ13 prototype race car from the 1960s. The XJ220 was built for limited production, selling for $339,000.
The car was a commercial failure, hitting showrooms at a time of recession. Its top speed, listed at 215 mph (but some tests past 220), was its selling point. But stiff competition from Lamborghini, Bugatti, and Ferrari held down the XJ220. The McLaren F1 hit the streets not long after with a top speed in the area of 240 mph and Space Age engineering. The XJ220 may not have been a seller, but it was an instant classic. Beautiful, fast, and exclusive, it had all the attributes of the finest Jaguars.
