Jaguar E-Type : Sexy Feline Turns Fifty

One of the greatest cars which many a school boy lusted for in the 1960s was the Jaguar E-Type. Heck it made even a grown up pant and salivate at the mere sight of what was truly one of the sexiest shapes in the automotive world. There was something phallic in its turnout but if ever there was a car which packed both show and go in equal measure this was it and it reflected mightily on enthusiast and lay-motorist alike. It predated the Lamborghini Miura, another automotive turn-on par excellence but unlike the Miura, the E-Type had Ferrari-beating sporting pedigree under its bonnet which the raging bull couldn’t muster.

This year in Geneva, at the motor show time, the Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Cars did a re-enactment from the time the original E-Type debuted exactly half a century ago in 1961. Jaguar founder William Lyons was also the quintessential PR type who liked to dream up novel means to publicise his new wares. Having been a veritable tour de force at Le Mans in the 1950s, winning the 24 Hour race five times with his C- and D-types and outsmarting Ferrari in the process, Lyons had come up with a striking road going sports car powered by what was essentially a detuned version of the very engine which had got all those Le Mans victories – the classic straight-six XK unit.

Not since the XK150 did Jaguar have a two-seat roadster in its line-up and with motor racing being a costly affair, Lyons knew that he had to come up with a car which would carry on that line of thought but would also be good enough to carry the Le Mans winning heritage and do a commercial good turn for the brand. Communicating new car models was a totally different line of thought in the early days of the swinging sixties but impressing a bunch of journos coming to Europe’s premier automotive show was always high on the cards. Lyons and his team including engine man Bill Heynes who was responsible for the XK 120, XK140, XK 150 and also the C- and D-Type racers, put together an impromptu first preview for selected motoring hacks at the Restaurant des Eaux Vives situated on the banks of Lake Geneva for the new sports car which was logically named the E-Type. It was a huge call for a car to follow in the tyre tracks of Le Mans winning machines but hey when you had such a glorious shape and the same race winning mechanicals, it was worth taking the risk.

As things transpired it paid off massively, both the impromptu promotion before the official unveiling of the car the next day and also as one of the world’s greatest, not suggest the most evocative sports car ever. Lyons and Heynes engaged the journos and the inevitable transpired: hack after hack was given a short drive in the car on the twisty mountain roads around the hotel.

To mark the golden jubilee of the E-Type Jaguar did a re-enactment as mentioned earlier and this time round it was Ratan Tata who was present to do the honours along with his colleagues and a small contingent of some of the world’s best known motoring journalists. The one thing different was that this time there was the original open-topped E-Type company demonstrator, registration number 77RW but for the journos, Jaguar had lined up a fine collection of twenty E-Types to drive on the same route which Lyons and Heynes had traversed in 1961.

Playing pilot to Ratan Tata on this unique re-enactment was Carl-Peter Forster, CEO and managing director of Tata Motors. The duo had a strong blast in 77RW which is also woven into the rich tapestry of the E-Type but that is a story for another time. Forster summed up the exercise succinctly: “What better way to celebrate half a century of the E-type than driving beautiful cars. This is a sporting classic that symbolizes the power and the passion of the Jaguar brand – one of the factors that attracted Tata Motors to purchase both Jaguar and Land Rover.”

I am sure that he spoke for everyone and his boss as well and this is where I think Jaguar has done everything correct since ownership was transferred to Tata Motors. Ratan Tata has been ever mindful of its tradition and heritage and what it stood for and this is exactly the direction he has outlined for Jaguar in the new century. One thing is for sure, more and more new Jaguars will emerge with a great many cues from the past but equally clear is that there will not be a modern day E-Type though many would lament that fact. You say some sacred icons are best left untouched.

The Myth of 77RW

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Seems that this has much to do with Norman Dewis, the legendary test driver for Jaguar Cars and also a man who was also an impromptu record breaker in the early 1950s with the first XK120s. While William Lyons and Bill Heynes were impressing the small bunch of journos at the Eaux Vives on the eve of the 1961 Geneva Motor Show, the duo suddenly felt the need for an additional demonstrator to be on hand at Geneva during show time. A call was put through to Dewis in England who was asked to come to Geneva at short notice.

With an E-Type of course! Dewis who was testing at MIRA picked up  77RW from the Jaguar works in Coventry, late in the evening and then drove non-stop to Geneva, doing the 1100km trip in under 14 hours! Mind you in those days there were not many expressways even then in Europe and so Dewis had to use a combination of fast highways and secondary country roads to bring up a second E-Type demonstrator to Geneva. That he averaged 109 miles per hour only helped create the mystic of the E-Type!