Growing up there were only two cars we dreamed of owning…. Vettes and XKEs  I, of course fell in love with the Jaguar. The XKE was introduced in 1961, at the time when Porsche was still producing the “Bathtub” shaped 356 series. The “E Type”, as it has come to be known, has has been on every designer’s all time “Top Ten” list ever since. When it was introduced in 1961, no less a person then Enzo Ferrari said it was the most beautiful car ever made. The slippery monocoque design of the E Type was a natural progression from the very successful racing D-Type which Malcom Sayer also designed.

Under the hood the car was all performance. An inline six cylinder,double overhead cam engine with three 2″  S.U. carburetors delivering a stock 265 HP. The factory boasted that the car did 0-60 M.P.H. in 7 seconds, a quarter mile in 17 seconds and had a top end of 150 M.P.H. To stop the car it had four wheel power assisted, disc brakes. The suspension was fully independent, with a torsion bar front end. The car was sold for a fraction of the cost of a comparable Ferrari or Aston Martin. The production ended in 1975 after over 70,000 cars had been built in various forms.

The car we are currently restoring, was one that I acquired in the early 70′s to settle a debt. The owner had a shunt (as the English would say) with the car and couldn’t afford to fix the damaged hood. I fixed the car and returned it to the road and was delighted with the car.

Shortly after getting this car on the road I was invited by a friend to attend the Mt.Equinox Hillclimb. After the smoke cleared on the Saturday, of the two day event, I was in second place overall beating out many high powered race and exotic sports cars. The Jag and I returned to Equinox with much success and capturing “Fastest Time of Day” several times. Subsequently the car was raced at Bridgehampton, Lime Rock and at the “Grand Bahama Vintage Grand Prix”. I  then acquired and started racing my SCCA “Bugeyed” Sprite and the XKE was retired from racing. Ten years ago we disassembled the car to restore it with the hopes to race it once again.