Jaguar plans to reboot its Classic D-Type sports car
Production has begun on the Jaguar Classic D-Type, a continuation of the race-winning sports car that the English company stopped producing in 1956.
The rebooted racer, which retains the original styling, is a copy of the three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner.
Specifications on the new car have not been released, but Jaguar says the Classic D-Type will be “authentic” and “original” and “period correct.”
That means, the company says, it will be powered by a naturally-aspirated six-cylinder engine — just like the race winners.
Only 25 will be made, at the Land Rover Classic Works facility in Warwickshire, England. Buyers lucky enough to nab one may choose between a 1955 short-nose or 1956 long-nose bodywork version.
The Classics line has done well for Jaguar, a division of Jaguar Land Rover, the carmaker now owned by massive Tata Motors of India.
Jaguar has already produced and sold a limited run of six Lightweight E roadsters and nine XKSS models. The Lightweights were going for $1.5 million each. The XKSS cars went for about $1.4 million apiece.
The originals are worth more. A 1955 D-Type sold at a 2016 RM Sotheby’s auction for just over $21 million — the highest price ever paid at auction for a British sports car.
The new D-Types will get their physical debuts this week at the Salon Retromobile car show in Paris.
