Jaguar E-Type Around the World

Jaguar's "other export" was every other country, from Europe to Australia and South Africa, and no source read gives an E-Type figure by country. AROnline gives Jaguar's exports of all models in 1964 and 1965, which show where the company's cars were going, not its E-Types: 880 to Australia, 617 to France, 530 to Switzerland, 300 to West Germany and 245 to Italy. In Europe, Cowin writes, Jaguar faced rising tariffs in Italy, France's "penal" vignette tax on engines over 2.8 litres, and Mercedes-Benz in West Germany.

The XKEdata register's counts of cars by steering side fit Jaguar's markets closely. If every American, Canadian and British car was built with its market's steering, then about 6,900 left-hand-drive cars went to Europe and the other left-hand markets, and about 1,800 right-hand-drive cars to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the other right-hand markets, by our arithmetic; the production figures page shows the working. In Australia, according to entries in the register, two of the first right-hand-drive roadsters were sent to the dealer Brysons, in Sydney and Melbourne, on 28 July 1961.

A British buyer paid Jaguar's basic price and, on top of it, purchase tax, which in March 1961 came to more than a quarter of what the buyer paid. The launch prices, with and without the tax, are in the specifications tables. The prices moved over the years:

So the 4.2 of 1964 cost less, with tax, than the 3.8 had at its launch. Motor Sport's prices of July 1962 are lower than those of 1961, though the article gives no date for a cut in the tax.⁠source 9​source 10​source 11​source 1

America shaped the E-Type more than any other market. The federal rules on safety and exhaust emissions that began with the 1968 model year brought open headlamps, rocker switches and, in time, the Series 2's higher bumpers and bigger air intake, and these reached every market: as Motor Sport saw it in 1972, the revisions of 1968 brought the E-Type into line with America's new safety thinking. Only some of the changes were America's alone: the twin Zenith-Stromberg carburettors and emission equipment of the six-cylinder cars, side markers, the 2R and UC to UE car-number prefixes, and the big rubber overriders (bumper guards) of the last two model years. Jaguar XKE tells the American story year by year.

By 1966 the E-Type was most of Jaguar's American sales, and in 1969, at its peak, 90% of the factory's E-Type output went to America, AROnline's Chris Cowin writes. Canada shared the federal tyre pressures that held the V12 below its top speed, Motor Sport noted in 1972, "in America and Canada".⁠source 12​source 7​source 13

The clearest picture of the E-Type in a single European market comes from its West German importer, A. Brüggemann + Co. of Düsseldorf. In October 1972 it advertised the V12 in auto motor und sport, "Coupe ab DM 40.135,—; Roadster ab DM 36.360,—", the coupé being the 2+2, and gave the engine's power in metric horsepower. Its headline line ran: "Ein Mann sollte im Leben ein Haus gebaut, einen Baum gepflanzt, einen Sohn gezeugt und einen Zwölfzylinder gefahren haben." In our translation: "A man should in his life have built a house, planted a tree, fathered a son and driven a twelve-cylinder." The advertisement added that British Leyland had about 8,000 dealers and service stations in Europe.

Three years later the same magazine's first drive of the XJ-S began: "Die Tage des Jaguar E-Type sind gezählt", the days of the Jaguar E-Type are numbered, in our translation; its successor stood ready at Coventry.⁠source 14​source 15