Jaguar revives an E-Type straight from the ‘60s, wants up to $1.4M for it

Gooding Auctions will attempt to sell a very special Jaguar E-Type coupe in Pebble Beach, California in mid-August. Created by the automaker’s own Lightweight Continuation division founded 11 years ago, the car belongs to a batch of just six examples and may fetch between $900,000 and $1,400,000.

It’s not just your average, run-of-the-mill E-Type, either. Back in 1963, Jaguar conducted  an experiment producing 12 lightweight E-Type examples with lots of aluminum parts. Original plans existed for at least 18 units, but the company broke off the production in 1964 without specifying a reason. In 2014, reminiscing about that incident, a representative of the Lightweight Continuation department let it slip that the company was eager to get back to that project and at least assemble the remaining six aluminum E-Types.

The example seen here is one of these continuation units. It features an exclusive dark grey exterior with a purplish sheen and white inserts, and rides on retro wheels shod in Dunlop tires. The interior is trimmed with red leather. The listing specifies that the car was mainly used for promotions.

Like its historical predecessor, this E-Type uses a 3.8-liter six-cylinder engine. Assisted by a trio of Weber carburetors, it produces around 304 PS (300 hp / 224 kW) in tandem with a manual transmission and rear-wheel drive system.

Incidentally, the continuation project was announced at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance 11 years ago.