The legendary Jaguar E-type is celebrating its 60th birthday this month. To emphasize this great opportunity, Jaguar Classic comes with a series of E-types that is a direct reference to the cars that debuted in Geneva in March 1961.
Jaguar Classic makes a total of six sets of one coupé and one roadster. Indeed, these previously announced cars are only sold as complete sets. These are not completely newly built cars, but restored to the smallest detail.
The cars are inspired by the coupé and roadster presented in Geneva in March 1961. The British wouldn’t be British if it didn’t include a great story. On March 15, 1961, the E-type was presented to the public at the well-known Geneva auto show. Jaguar had a copy available there for test drives: a gray coupé with number plate 9600 HP. According to legend, that car was driven by road and of course full throttle from the factory in Coventry to Geneva by PR man Bob Berry. In honor of that beautiful ride, the shade of gray on the reborn coupés is called ‘Flat out Gray’.
Drop everything
However, the story continues. Because of the positive reactions, Jaguar said it was forced to ship a second copy to Geneva in haste. The roadster in British Racing Green with registration number 77 RW was also driven on public roads and with great haste to Switzerland, this time in the skillful hands of test driver Norman Dewis. According to legend, Dewis had to ‘drop everything’ to drive the car to the fair, so the green color on the restored roadster is called ‘Drop everything Green’. You just have to come to it.
Jaguar E-type
One hundred hours of manual work
In the interior we also encounter a reference to these special journeys. For example, the cars receive a stylized route map of the trip in question on the center console. This engraving takes a hundred hours of manual work per car, Jaguar reports. Furthermore, the classics are of course provided with an E-type 60 logo designed for the occasion, accompanied by the years 1961-2021. As icing on the cake, a trip from Coventry to Geneva will be organized for the six buyers in the summer of 2022, to experience that party for themselves. This will not really be ‘flat out’, because there must of course be time left for beautiful hotels and ‘culinary highlights’.