Two years after unveiling the E-Type — built between 1961 and 1975, and known as one of the most beautiful vehicles ever designed — the folks at Jaguar rolled out a lighter version of the model specifically developed for racing.
Dubbed E-Type Lightweight, it featured an all-aluminum body and engine block, and had most of its interior trim removed, making it 250 pounds lighter than the standard E-Type. Only 12 units of this track-purpose vehicles were built, although Jaguar’s initial plan was to conceive 18 of them.
Believe it or not, the Brits have just decided to make use of the remaining designated chassis numbers and construct six more Lightweight E-Types 50 years after the original example left the factory. The sports cars will be built to their original specifications and fitted with the same 3.8-liter, straight-six engine.
Jaguar has yet to mention when the hand-built coupes will become available or at what price, but word has it each vehicle will fetch about $1.7 million. Despite costing more than a brand-new McLaren P1, the Lightweight E-Types are expected to sell like hot cakes and it appears the company will hand them over to established Jaguar collectors that already own historic race cars.
Since we don’t own any Jaguars and our pockets aren’t deep enough, we’re not hoping to take delivery of one of these race-bred beauties, but we’re hoping to see them on the track as soon as they’re out of the factory gate.
Update 8/11/2014: Just as suspected after Jaguar Land Rover revealed the Range Rover SVR ahead of its Pebble Beach debut, JLR has chosen to also reveal the much-anticipated "New" Lightweight E-Type prototype — dubbed "Car Zero" ahead of its Pebble Beach debut. And we are up especially late to bring you this special reveal and a quick rundown of the key points of this awesome prototype after the jump.
Click past the jump to read more about the 2014 Jaguar Lightweight E-Type.
Jaguar Lightweight E-Type originally appeared on topspeed.com on Monday, 11 August 2014 19:20 EST.
Source: http://feeds.topspeed.com/~r/topspeed/~3/RqC4ESZXzhg/2014-jaguar-lightweight-e-type-ar163621.html
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