Jaguar D-Type

The Jaguar D-Type is a very rare car made in the 1950s. It won Le Mans in 1955, 1956, and 1957. In 1957 a d-type placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th. The car I have is not of course a real D-type, as they are worth a staggering £2m+ now. What I have is a replica. But its not any old replica.

Lynx Engineering

The car was made by Lynx in 1977. Its the 2nd car they sold to the general public, and perhaps the 4th they made. The body

Picture taken by previous owner

was made by the Jensen Motor Company, who made the crazy Jensen Interceptor. Lynx is well known as being the restorers of original D-Types, and made a few very good replica/reproduction D-Type, and its road going derivative XKSS. This Lynx is the only Lynx whose body was made by Jensen.

Lynx Motors had some difficulties a few years back, and some key people left to form CKL Developments. The owner of the company Chris, and his co-owner Melvin, are both ex-Lynx. The car I bought has been maintained by CKL for the last few years, and Lynx before then. Chris was the project manager of the car's build back in 1977. So he should know what he is talking about.

The Car

Underside

In 1995 the car had £40,000 spent on it, redoing some panel work had an entire rebuild from the ground up. The car at this time had a works D-type spec engine installed at great expense. It has an e-type cylinder head, but still uses the D-type 1.75 inch inlet valves.

Fast?

It still has about 300bhp and 300ft lb of torque. The car of course is made entirely of hand beaten aluminium, and in some places is quite thin. Almost like cock-can thin. It therefore weighs a very light 850kg. Now thats about the same as an old mini, and less than a modern one. Match that to the engine, and LSD, and not only can it grip like bonkers, but can get to 60mph in 4 seconds, and go on up to an estimated (no I haven't done this yet), 180mph. Even in their day, the d-type was stuppidly fast. At Le Mans, 200mph was sometimes reached, and 185mph was reached on every lap on the Mulsane straight.

The car has a "long" 3.31 Diff ratio, which means its geared for high speed, but slower acceleration. With a higher ratio like 3.54, the top speed would be around 150mph (ample), but the 0-60 would be under 4 seconds. So yes its fast.

Beauty

Now, remembering that this car was built to win Le Mans, which it did, and did well, it would have to be functional over beauty, but to my eyes, this has got to be one of, if not the best looking sports cars.

My First Drive (test drive, before buying), very carefully now