2011/02 - The Jaguar Drivers Club of Natal, South Africa.

"The E-Type is simply one of the most exciting cars yet created and a legacy to the genius of Jaguar's founder, Sir
William Lyons”
E-Type owners included celebrities such as George Best, Brigitte Bardot, Tony Curtis and Steve McQueen and the
car became as synonymous with the Swinging Sixties as the Beatles and the miniskirt.
“It's impossible to overstate the impact the E-Type had when it was unveiled in 1961,” said Ian Callum, Jaguar's
design director. “Here was a car that encapsulated the spirit of the revolutionary era it came to symbolise. The E-
Type is a design that even today continues to inform the work we do in styling Jaguars of the future”.
The car was first shown at the Geneva auto show in March 1961 and caused a sensation. It was capable of 240
km/h but cost a fraction of the price of rivals with similar performance; it was the affordable supercar and
became an instant icon - and was produced for 14 years.
MAN AND (HIS) MACHINE: Back in
1961 the Jaguar E-Type was the
ultimate car to own. Jaguar's founder,
Sir William Lyons, stands proudly by
his creation.
Some E-Type facts:
* The E-Type was presented to the world’s news media at the restaurant du Parc des Eaux Vives in Geneva on
March 15, 1961. Such was the media excitement and clamour for demonstration runs up a nearby hillclimb that
Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons instructed chief test driver Norman Dewis to drive through the night from
Coventry to bring another unit to Switzerland.
* Even Enzo Ferrari admitted it was “the most beautiful car in the world".
* The E-type’s straight-six engine had powered Jaguar to five Le Mans victories in the 1950's and by 1961, in 3.8-
litre form, produced 265bhp and 260lb ft of torque, making the car a genuine 240 km/h proposition and, like its
XK120 predecessor, the fastest production car in the world.
* At launch the E-Type cost £2256 (then the equivalent of about R4500) including purchase tax and the allimportant
optional wire wheels, the equivalent today of just £38 000 (now the equivalent of about R 400 000).
* The E-Type’s perfectly proportioned bodywork was the work of Malcolm Sayer, an aeronautical engineer who
also applied his aerodynamic expertise to shaping the earlier Le Mans-winning C and D-Type racers.
* The E-type remained in production for 14 years and sold more than 70 000 units, making it Europe’s first massproduced
sports car.
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