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    Jaguar E-Type: British Motoring Masterpiece
    Jaguar E-Type: British Motoring Masterpiece
    Jaguar E-Type: British Motoring Masterpiece
    Ebook177 pages1 hour

    Jaguar E-Type: British Motoring Masterpiece

    By Lance Cole

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    About this ebook

    The author of Classic Car Gallery “covers the Jaguar and its various incarnations with lovingly snappy prose . . . to excite the passions of Jaguar-mania” (The Historical Miniatures Gaming Society).

    The third book in the new CarCraft series, Jaguar E-Type, frames the legend of what many call the world’s most beautiful car design. Sir William Lyons and Malcolm Sayer carved automotive history with this car across its 1960s-1970s incarnations from roadster to coupé amid the fitting of Straight-Six, to V12 engines.

    With its new definition of sculptural styling, performance, handling and innovative style, the E-Type or XKE series in the USA, created a car of global impact that remains a great classic of all time.

    Here, experienced automotive writer, and industrial designer, Lance Cole pays tribute to the car in a detailed yet engaging commentary. New photography, the design story, and full coverage of the modeling options in synthetic materials and die cast metals, create a narrative of vital interest.

    The aim of the innovative CarCraft series is to provide modelmakers and car enthusiasts with a new standard of primarily visual reference of both full-size cars and their scale models. Each book contains detailed technical information imparted through drawings and photographs while the meticulously researched full-color profiles provides a complete reference for paint schemes and markings. In addition, every volume of the CarCraft series features summaries of design histories and operational careers, and reviews of available kits.

    “This book will be of great interest to modelers planning on doing a Jaguar model and also to car enthusiasts.”—AMPS Indianapolis
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 30, 2020
    ISBN9781526756855
    Jaguar E-Type: British Motoring Masterpiece
    Author

    Lance Cole

    Lance Cole has been an automotive and aviation writer for over 25 years and is internationally published and syndicated. A former Sir William Lyons Scholar, and national press columnist, Lance is the author of over a dozen books and is also a trained designer, photographer and illustrator.

    Read more from Lance Cole

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      Book preview

      Jaguar E-Type - Lance Cole

      Classic scene: blue magic. The essential design language of the feline E-Type SI in soft-top roadster form with hood down on a summer’s day. That bonnet and the proportions of the car say everything about Malcolm Sayer’s exquisite design.

      INTRODUCTION

      The E-Type: British Motoring Masterpiece

      There are many cars of the twentieth century that have claims to fame, of being icons of car design and driving, yet the number of true icons can almost be counted on one hand. Arguably the Jaguar E-Type leads the pack but there are other contenders: Porsche 911, Aston Martin DB4, Ferrari Daytona, Lamborghini Muira, Citroën DS, Willys Jeep, BMW 328 and Ford Mustang to name a few candidates.

      There are other cars that their champions will cite as more worthy, not least from their national perspective: the Porsche 911 is of course a worldwide icon, but for many, the truth is that the Jaguar E-Type (or the XKE as it was tagged by Americans) was the global legend of its age. It was also a huge British design achievement on an international stage when British industrial design produced everything from cars such as the Mini and the Rover P6, to the QE2 liner, the Avro Vulcan, the Blackburn Buccaneer, the TSR2, the Vickers VC10 and then Concorde itself.

      We must observe though that the Porsche 911 line continues to this day whereas E-Type does not. But that is not its fault, for that responsibility lies with what became British Leyland (BL) out of the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and merger with the Leyland Company in 1968; BLMC or just BL swallowed up Jaguar and several major British brands in league with British governments of all political hues whose hands ultimately lay upon the end of indigenous British volume car manufacturing. Latterly, Sir John Egan reinvented Jaguar from its darkest ‘BL’ days of declining quality and poor productivity in antiquated factories.

      The E-Type was to become part of the BL process upon Jaguar, but has yet to be reincarnated despite several proposals and of course the F-Type as today’s inheritor of the ethos.

      We should not forget that, contrary to perceived wisdom, BL’s famous Sir Michael Edwardes was not brought into BL by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; he was in fact appointed in 1977 by a Labour leader named James Callaghan. It would be the 1980s before Jaguar threw off its yoke of ‘State’ thinking under BL. But Edwardes would free Jaguar to regain its brand identity. Yet all that was long after the heyday of Jaguar’s 1950s Le Mans fame, the C-Type, D-Type and then the E-Type itself that was born as the 1960s began.

      Revealed to a stunned world via a launch at the Salon d l’Auto de Genève in March 1961, the Jaguar E-Type (in fact to be badged as the E-Type Jaguar) actually caused the traffic to stop in several stylish cities when the inhabitants got their first sight of its incredible, yet never outrageous, style. This was no styling gimmick of a car, no marketing hype-led machine, no short-term fashion statement designed to shift metal. Instead, E-Type was a defining design that framed its own moment and its own sub-brand amid a new design language and a new era – the swinging Sixties. But E-Type would transcend even that decade’s passing moments.

      Incredibly, and best left behind in the darkest corner of design, was the attempt by designer Raymond Loewy (perhaps his ego) to improve or update the E-Type with his dandified restyling of the E-Type’s front and rear. Yet today you can buy a scale model of it, if you must.

      Aston Martin designer William Towns also produced a special-bodied V12 named as the Guyson E12.

      E-Type brought new standards of speed, handling and style, all at a relative bargain price. Yet it did more than this, for its design language and driving experience defined a new age. Was it a revolutionary car design? Not quite, but it was a significant design and engineering advance of forensic engineering application, a car that was not just the best of thinking, but fresh thought developed from a rapidly advancing, racing-led framework of ideas.

      A red E-Type of late 1963 build shows off the amazing face of the Coventry cat. Those faired-in headlamps and bladed bumpers really were classic design items. (Photo Jaguar)

      Was the convertible soft top or open roadster the defining E-Type? Some argue that the fastback coupé, or Fixed Head Coupé (FHC), was even more stylish and stunning, and it was revealed first too – at Geneva. Two camps existed but both E-Type variants were available from launch. Americans particularly loved the open-topped car.

      Available new for a shade under £2,000, or half the price of a Ferrari, E-Type was of exquisite engineering and design sculpture yet one that was a paradox in being sold at a market price within reach of a larger part of society. A supercar, but not unobtainable – even if it remained a dream to the average working man amid a changing British society. Famous names from Billy Cotton, Innes Ireland, Briggs Cunningham, Max Aitken and many more owned early E-Types.

      Much has been written about the E-Type Jaguar but this book attempts where possible, a fresh look at the design, development and, importantly, the modelling of the E-Type in an innovative new format that is also accessible and value for money. We do not have the space to supply every detail rivet by rivet, but we have taken a journey through the legend of the E-Type in factory, full-size metal, and die-cast and resin materials.

      The last 1970s Series 3 E-Types were very different machines from the car’s earlier marks, yet despite a slight corruption of the original styling and with the fitment of the supreme Jaguar V12 engine, the E-Type retained its character and allure in a new chapter of its life and marketing.

      Few other cars can match the design and driving story of Jaguar’s amazing E-Type – the true 150mph (almost!) British sports car that came in open convertible (roadster) and fixed-head (coupé) fastback types from launch. Some people think the original coupé type is prettier than the folding-roof open car, yet it is the open convertible that seems to get the glamour treatment from many.

      Of that 150mph claim, well yes, it applied to factory test cars not least under the command of test driver and development engineer Norman Dewis, but as he stated to the author: ‘The standard production-line cars did not really achieve 150mph. A good one, correctly set up might get to 147, but most struggled to beat 143mph. Coupés were easier aerodynamically, yet generated a bit of rear-end lift at high speed and they were heavier.’

      Autocar proved a point with its famous road test in Belgium of an early E-type that did get to top the magical 150mph (nudging 152mph), but certain blueprinted tweaks had been made to the engine at the factory.

      Yet the E-Type became a 150mph icon – despite the early cars having a slightly obstructive gearbox, a soon-to-be whining first gear, and a propensity for electrical maladies, rust and some rather cheap trim items. Did early E-Types look better than they went? So say many experts, yet some purists see beyond that. But the early brakes were weak and even the seats were soon to be improved –

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