Synopsis
The first edition of the present book was published in 2014 and was quickly acclaimed as the bible of the classic Jaguar racers. This greatly expanded new edition runs to more than 400 pages and contains 500 illustrations. It brings the individual stories of over 150 cars up to date, and includes additional useful information and appendices. Today the name of Jaguar still ranks high in the pantheon of British cars that have won the Le Mans 24-hour race. A mere 20 years since the birth of their first car, Jaguar had become the leading high-performance car in Britain thanks to the revolutionary XK engine, and the XK120 was in its day the fastest production car in the world. While the company had begun to earn its spurs in motor racing, it was a bold step to build a new car with the specific intention of entering Le Mans, at the time the most famous motor race in the world. Remarkably, the new Jaguar C-type succeeded in winning at Le Mans on the first attempt. A further four Le Mans victories followed: in 1953 for the C-type again, and then three wins for D-types from 1955 to 1957, by which time the Jaguar works team had been withdrawn from racing. Private entries of Jaguar C- and D-types in other races continued for many years. The E-type was never as successful in racing, since it was conceived as a GT road car rather than a racer, but the small run of lightweight cars and other competition versions added further lustre to Jaguar’s reputation. C- and D-types were sold in some numbers to private owners on both sides of the Atlantic, many of whom obviously used them for racing, but unlike most later sports-racing cars they could still be used on the road. This was and remains one of their many attractions. Virtually all the cars have survived, and in recent times have seen a steady increase in value. This updated, enlarged and comprehensive new edition of the Register is a tribute to these glorious cars, to the people who were involved in their design and production, and to the drivers who campaigned them.
About the Author
Den Carlow grew up with a Jaguar Mark X, he has been an archive volunteer at the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust for over 25 years, and has written a number of papers on various Jaguars which have been published by the Trust. Using original records in the Trust archive as well as published sources, he and Penny Woodley undertook most of the research which has provided many new insights and much new information on the cars described in this book. Den is a keen collector of Jaguar books and publications, as well as scale models. Anders Ditlev Clausager spent most of his working life of 35 years as an archivist, first with the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust, and then the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, until retirement in 2014. During his years with the JDHT he became thoroughly familiar with the cars included in the present volume. He is a general automotive historian with about twenty books to his credit, including titles on Jaguar XK 120, XK 140, and E-type, and in 2017 won the Cugnot, Montagu, and Sedgwick awards for his book on Wolseley. Paul Skilleter has spent more than 50 years researching and writing about Jaguar cars. He was a founder of the Jaguar Drivers’ Club’s XK Register and his first book Jaguar Sports Cars was published in 1975. His Jaguar Saloon Cars won the Cugnot award in 1981. He has edited the XK Bulletin and Jaguar Driver, and has founded several magazines, including Jaguar Quarterly which became Jaguar World, but also Practical Classics. He continues to write, and runs a private publishing company, which naturally specialises in Jaguar titles! Penny Woodley has a unique insight in some of the cars discussed in this book, since she and her late husband Roger Woodley used to own four of them, inherited from her father Guy Griffiths who established a small private motor museum at Chipping Campden. Although all these cars have since passed into other ownership, Penny remains an enthusiast and is a long-standing archive volunteer at the JDHT. Working together with Den Carlow, she has put together much of the detailed information in the individual car histories in this book.
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