JaguarE-Type

Jaguar XKE

In America the E-Type was the Jaguar XK-E, usually written XKE, and from 1971 simply the Jaguar V12. How it reached New York in 1961, what it cost, how the federal rules changed it year by year, and how two in three E-Types came to be sold there.

A white E-Type roadster with red seats and red-line tyres on a car park, seen from the front three-quarter.
A left-hand-drive Series 1 roadster on red-line tyres, with no front number plate (license plate), at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in May 2022; its owner dates it 1963.Elise240SX, CC BY-SA 4.0

On 1 April 1961, a little over two weeks after Geneva, the E-Type went on show in New York, and Motor Trend introduced it to its readers under the name America would use: "The new car is designated as the XK-E, a successor to the XK-150". For the next ten years Americans bought the XK-E, usually written XKE, and from 1971 the Series 3 came to them as the Jaguar V12. They bought more of it than anyone: by Jaguar's own count, 49,032 E-Types went to the United States.⁠1​2​3

The name

The name was a choice. John Dugdale, who ran Jaguar's publicity in America, recalled in his book Jaguar in America why the American side, with its advertising agency Cunningham & Walsh, wanted to keep the XK letters of Jaguar's earlier sports cars:

…who wanted to continue XKE for marketing reasons; and we did so. It was much more effective to splash XKE on a showroom poster; XK meant a great deal in America after more than 20 years.

John Dugdale, Jaguar in America, 1993

So it was the XK-E in the price lists and the road tests of 1961, Car and Driver's among them, and Jaguar Cars Inc. used both spellings itself: "XK-E" in the price panel of its advertisements for 1967 and "XKE" in their text. When the Series 3 came, the name went: from 1971 Jaguar's American advertising sold the car as the Jaguar V12, without the XKE name, AROnline's Chris Cowin records.⁠1​4​5​6​7​2

Contents

New York, April 1961

The car's American debut was the New York International Automobile Show at the Coliseum, on 1 April 1961. Industrial Design reported that "The E-type Jaguar was the hit of this year's show, favorite of press and public". The importer was Jaguar Cars Inc., of 32 East 57th Street, New York. Jaguar had set up its own North American company in 1954, with Johannes Eerdmans as its president, where Max Hoffman in the east and Charles Hornburg in the west had been its distributors; by September 1961 Eerdmans could tell Automotive News that "The XK-E models have met with dramatic acceptance here".

Acceptance was easier than supply. The same paper reported that XK150 production had stopped early in the year and that "XK-E output did not begin until midyear", so American buyers waited for their cars.⁠8​9​4​10

Contents

Prices new in America

The first list price is Automotive News's of 11 September 1961: an East Coast port-of-entry price, with ocean freight, excise tax and import duty paid and a heater as standard. The specifications tables give it. Other figures were printed that year, on other bases or none:

SourceRoadsterCoupéWhat it was
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 15 April 1961"about $5500"A newspaper's estimate, before prices were fixed
Jaguar Heritage Trust$5,595$5,895An earlier figure, undated
Motor Trend, July 1961$6,095$6,320As printed; its basis is not stated

Jaguar's own advertising gave later prices. Its list "Jaguar Cars for 1967", of suggested retail prices at an East Coast port, slightly higher on the West Coast, priced the roadster at $5,384, the coupé at $5,580, the 2+2 at $5,870 and the 2+2 automatic at $6,120. A Series 2 advertisement that Dugdale reproduces reads "The Jaguar XKE Convertible Roadster. Modestly priced at, $5534". The V12 convertible of March 1971 cost $6,950, and Gunnell's Standard Catalog of Jaguar gives the V12 2+2 at $7,325. The Corvette was the cheaper car, as the rivals page shows.⁠4​11​12​13​7​6​2​14

Contents

The American cars, year by year

The American E-Type was never quite the British one. The 4.2 had lower gearing for America as standard, and from the 1968 model year the federal government's rules on safety and exhaust emissions changed the car again and again. The by-year page sets out every change; these are America's:

Model yearWhat changed for America
1961The New York debut on 1 April; deliveries from the middle of the year
1966The 2+2, built partly to earn dollars
1968The federal rules: open headlamps and rocker switches, which every market later shared, and, for America alone, two Zenith-Stromberg carburettors and emission controls, 246 hp in Gunnell's figure; Jaguar "offered only the hastily revised 'Series 1½' E-type range", Cowin writes
1969–70The Series 2, with safety features Gunnell says had been seen only on American cars
1971Late Series 2 cars carry a 2R prefix; in March the V12, presented to the American press at Palm Springs, with Sir William Lyons there, Dugdale recalls
1972The UC prefix
1973The UD prefix; big rubber overriders (bumper guards) at the front; the last 2+2 cars built that summer
1974The UE prefix; overriders front and rear; the roadster only

Production ended on 12 June 1974, and Dugdale recalls that American sales were meant to stop by the end of the year, "but a few were shipped out through the turn of the year".

An unrestored 1963 3.8 coupé, bought new in California and kept by one owner, with its original engine bay and Moss gearbox (transmission), then driven on the roads of Los Angeles.Video: 1963 Jaguar XKE - Jay Leno's Garage, Jay Leno's Garage, 2013
The dash of an E-Type roadster: speedometer and rev counter behind a wood-rim wheel, and a black centre panel of dials and toggle switches.
The dashboard of a 1967 Series 1 4.2 roadster with the hazard-warning switch of a late North American car, at Lime Rock in 2022.Charles from Port Chester, New York, CC BY 2.0

Contents

Sales and share

Jaguar's figures, printed when production ended, sent 49,032 E-Types to the United States and 2,439 to Canada. That is about two in three of all the cars Jaguar counted, and seven in ten with Canada, by our arithmetic. The production figures page sets the American share beside the rest of the world.

In single years the share ran higher. The XK-E "accounted for all but 1000 of the 5370 Jaguars sold in the USA for 1966", Cowin writes, the new 2+2 alone finding 1,500 buyers, and when E-Type output peaked in 1969, at 220 cars a week, 90% went to America. Jenkinson put the V12's American share at 78% in April 1971. Jaguar's American network needed at least 5,000 cars a year to survive, Cowin adds, and the E-Type was its "mainstay", in his word: Jaguar sold a record 7,246 cars of all models in America in 1970. How many of each year's sales were E-Types, no published source read says.⁠3​8​10​2​19

Contents

Canada

Canada took 2,439 E-Types, by Jaguar's figures. Jaguar's Canadian sales of all models had never passed 1,000 a year before the 1970s, Cowin writes, and the E-Type was still in British Leyland Canada's range in 1971. No source read gives a Canadian-only specification. Canada shared America's federal tyre pressures on the V12, which Motor Sport noted held it below its top speed, and the V12's exhaust had been engineered from the start, the magazine reported, for the American, Canadian and Swedish markets.

The XK-E's place in American culture, from Harold and Maude to the Museum of Modern Art, is on the popular culture page.⁠3​20​21​22

A faded red E-Type coupé from behind in a car park by a brick wall, with large tail lamps below the bumper.
A left-hand-drive Series 2 coupé photographed in Calgary, Alberta, in August 2010; nothing in the picture shows whether it was built for Canada.Michael Gil from Calgary, AB, Canada, CC BY 2.0

Contents

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
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  1. Motor Trend, "Jaguar's XK-E", May 1961 (vol. 13 no. 5), p. 56, "Jaguar's XK-E", the announcement; "The new car is designated as the XK-E". Primary
  2. Chris Cowin, "History: Exporting British cars to the USA – Part Two", AROnline, 31 May 2025, updated 21 Oct 2025, 1971: "the Jaguar V12"; 1971: the Series 3's American name; 1971: the convertible's price; 1970–74: the Series 2, Palm Springs, the overriders, the convertible only; Jaguar's American sales, 1970–75. Reference
  3. Motor Sport, "Jaguar E-type: the end of production and end of an era – but not of a legend", May 1975, p. 29, p. 29, the cars that went to the USA; p. 29, the cars by market; p. 29, the cars that went to Canada. Primary
  4. Automotive News (Crain Communications), via Internet Archive, "Port-of-Entry Prices on Imported Cars", 11 Sep 1961, vol. 37 no. 3828, the import price list, "XK-E"; Eerdmans's words; "XK-E output did not begin until midyear"; the importer's directory entry; the import price list's heading and the XK-E. Primary
  5. Car and Driver, "Road Research Report: Jaguar XK-E" and "Dual Test: Jaguar XK-E vs. 1962 Corvette", Dec 1961 (vol. 7), the report's and the dual test's titles. Primary
  6. John Dugdale, Jaguar in America, Britbook Publishing, 1993, the choice of the XKE name; the advertisement "Modestly priced at, $5534"; Lyons at Palm Springs; the run-out of 1974. Reference
  7. Jaguar Cars Inc. (advertisement in Newsweek), "Jaguar Cars for 1967" (advertisement), Newsweek, vol. 69 (1967), "Jaguar Cars for 1967": XK-E in the price list, XKE in the text; "Jaguar Cars for 1967", the price panel. Primary
  8. Jaguar Clubs of North America, "Jaguar Model Guides: The E-type", the New York show, 1 April 1961; "over 3/4 of the 72 000". Reference
  9. Industrial Design, Industrial Design, May 1961, May 1961 (vol. 8 no. 5), the New York show report. Reference
  10. Chris Cowin, "History: Exporting British cars to the USA – Part One", AROnline, 31 May 2025, updated 20 Feb 2026, the 1950s: Hoffman, Hornburg and Jaguar Cars of North America; 1968: "the hastily revised 'Series 1½' E-type range"; 1966 sales; the 1969 peak; the network's needs. Reference
  11. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 15 April 1961 (the Jaguar XK-E at the New York show), 15 Apr 1961 (vol. 83 no. 104), "about $5500". Primary
  12. François Prins, "Evolution of the E-Type", Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, the New York section's prices. Reference
  13. Gordon Wilkins, "Driver's Report: A First Test of the Jaguar XK-E", Motor Trend, Jul 1961 (vol. 13 no. 7), pp. 70–71, p. 71, the closing line's prices. Primary
  14. John Gunnell, Standard Catalog of Jaguar, Krause Publications, 2007, the price tables: the 2+2 of 1971; the American rating from 1968; the Series 2's safety features. Reference
  15. Motor Sport, "The 4.2-Litre Jaguar E-type" ("A lengthy road test of the 150 m.p.h. E-Type"), Jan 1965, p. 23, the data panel, the American axle ratio. Primary
  16. Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, Research Guide No. 001F: Chassis Number Runs and Change Points by model – Jaguar E-type, Issue 3, January 2023, the 2R, UC, UD and UE prefixes; the last 2+2 cars. Primary
  17. Road & Track, Road & Track, October 1973 (road-test summary table), Oct 1973, the New York International Show report. Primary
  18. William Kimberley, "The Jaguar E-Type 3.8, 4.2 & V12", Motor Sport, Apr 1989, p. 81, p. 81, "Introduced at the New York Motor Show". Reference
  19. Denis Jenkinson, "Driving the V12 Jaguar", Motor Sport, Apr 1971, p. 64, p. 64, "78% of the V12 cars". Primary
  20. Chris Cowin, "History: Exporting British cars to Canada – Part One: Commonwealth Preference?", AROnline, 2 Aug 2025, Jaguar's Canadian sales; British Leyland Canada's range of 1971. Reference
  21. Bill Boddy, "On the road with the V12 E-type Jaguar", Motor Sport, Jan 1972, p. 36, p. 36, the federal tyre pressures "in America and Canada". Primary
  22. Bill Boddy, "The new Jaguar V12", Motor Sport, Apr 1971, p. 61, p. 61, the emission work for the USA, Canada and Sweden. Primary

Contents