Jaguar E-Type Reborn
The E-Types Jaguar has sold since 2017: original cars restored by Jaguar Classic, from the first Reborn coupé to the 60 Collection, a Jubilee one-off, the ZP pairs and the Commemoratives of 2024.
About the pictureA restored Series 1 coupé at a Prague show in 2019; not a Jaguar Classic car.
At the Techno-Classica show in Essen in April 2017, Jaguar showed a grey E-Type coupé that had been exported to California when new. It was a 4.2 of 1965, exported in May that year, and it had covered 78,000 miles before it was put into storage in 1983; it still had its original body, engine and gearbox (transmission). Jaguar's new Classic department had restored it to the specification it left the factory with, and offered it for sale. It was the first E-Type Reborn, and the start of a line of restored E-Types that Jaguar has sold since.source 1
Jaguar Classic's E-Types, in order
| Announced | Programme | What Jaguar built | Cars |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 2017 | E-Type Reborn | restored Series 1 E-Types, to factory specification | a first batch of 10 |
| September 2017 | E-Type Zero | a 1968 roadster converted to electric power | one |
| August 2020 | E-Type 60 Collection | matched pairs of 3.8 coupés and roadsters | six pairs |
| June 2022 | Platinum Jubilee car | a 1965 roadster for one customer | one |
| June 2023 | E-Type ZP Collection | pairs honouring the first race wins of 1961 | seven pairs |
| October 2024 | E-Type Commemorative | two open cars for one client | two |
E-Type Reborn was announced on 31 March 2017: "an initial batch of 10" Series 1 E-Types, found by Jaguar's specialists, restored and sold directly from the new Classic Works at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, near Coventry. Jaguar used the Jaguar Heritage Trust's build records and drawings, remade corroded panels from its own data, even, it said, recreating the correct type of spot-welding, and offered only a few changes, at extra cost: better cooling derived from the Lightweight, the all-synchromesh gearbox where a car lacked it, and the Series 2's front brake calipers.
Every E‑type Reborn, which starts with a base vehicle sourced by Jaguar's E‑type experts, is completely restored according to the company's original 1960s factory specification.
No later figure for the number of Reborn cars was found in the sources read. The electric E-Type Zero of the same year has a page of its own, Electric Jaguar E-Type.
The E-Type 60 Collection, announced in August 2020 and revealed in March 2021 for the car's sixtieth birthday, went further from the original. Each of its six pairs was a restored 3.8 coupé in Flat Out Grey, after 9600 HP, and a roadster in Drop Everything Green, after 77 RW, the colours named for the two launch cars' dashes to Geneva in 1961, and they were sold only as pairs. Jaguar fitted a five-speed all-synchromesh gearbox, an aluminium radiator with an electric fan, electronic ignition and a stainless-steel exhaust, and the consoles were engraved by the artist Johnny Dowell, known as King Nerd, with the routes to Geneva.
The Platinum Jubilee car was a one-off: a 1965 roadster restored for a private customer and driven in the Pageant on The Mall on 5 June 2022, painted a metallic blue that Jaguar said was inspired by the Union flag, with red leather. It had a larger six, which Jaguar calls 4.7-litre, in place of its 4.2, the five-speed gearbox, uprated suspension and brakes and LED lamps. Jaguar's story is that the car was built two days after its customer was born.
The E-Type ZP Collection of June 2023 was seven pairs of restored 3.8 cars, named, by Jaguar's account, after the project under which seven early cars were turned into racers in 1961, and painted after the first two winners: an open car in Oulton Blue after Graham Hill's ECD 400 and a coupé in Crystal Grey after Roy Salvadori's car. Its buyers were offered matching F-Type ZP Editions. The period story of those first races is on the 1961 season.
The E-Type Commemorative of October 2024 was a pair, not a one-off: two Series 1 open cars, which Jaguar Classic now calls drophead coupés, built for one client in Southeast Asia in Signet Green and Opal Black, with a 3.8 converted to electronic fuel injection, a five-speed gearbox and details made by the jewellers Deakin & Francis. Jaguar called them "the only two examples ever to leave the Jaguar Classic workshop", and built them to mark 50 years since the end of production; they are not the Commemorative run of 1974, whose last car is the last E-Type. That June Jaguar had gathered 50 E-Types at the London Concours for the same anniversary.
Most of these cars were changed from the factory's specification as well as restored, and Jaguar E-Type Restomod looks at where restoration ends and modification begins.source 1source 2source 3source 4source 5source 6source 7source 8
Sources
Sources are given as plain text; their addresses are on the sources page.
- Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Classic to Launch E-type Reborn at Techno-Classica Essen Show" (press release), 31 Mar 2017, the release of 31 March 2017: the first car and Essen; the batch, the specification, the options and the panels. Primary
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar E-type Zero – 'The Most Beautiful Electric Car in the World'" (press release), 7 Sep 2017, the E-Type Zero. Primary
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Classic Will Celebrate 60 Years of E-type in 2021 with Anniversary Tribute Edition" (press release), 12 Aug 2020, the announcement. Primary
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Classic Reveals E-type 60 Collection: 60th Anniversary Tribute to the Iconic Sports Car" (press release), 12 Mar 2021, the six pairs, their colours, specification and consoles. Primary
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "One-off Jaguar Classic E-type Debuts at The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Pageant" (press release), 7 Jun 2022, the Platinum Jubilee car. Primary
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Classic Unveils Tribute to First E-type Race Wins with the E-type ZP Collection" (press release), 6 Jun 2023, the seven pairs and the F-Type ZP Editions. Primary
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Classic E-type Commemorative: Jewel and Machine" (press release), 23 Oct 2024, the two Commemoratives. Primary
- Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Pays Homage to a Generation-Defining Classic at London Concours 2024, the Jaguar E-type" (press release), 5 Jun 2024, the E-Types at the London Concours. Primary