Jaguar to build six E‑type Geneva 1961 tribute pairs

Alas we can’t even be there to celebrate the anniversary next year – there’s no Swiss show again in 2021 following this year’s cancellation – but Jaguar is offering a few lucky souls an alternative way to mark what was among the greatest and most storied of motor show debuts.

The offer? Your own matching pair of Geneva Motor Show E-types. A limited run of Series 1 3.8s in convertible and fixed head forms is being fettled to like-new by Jaguar Classic in tribute to the two cars that stole the show 60 years ago.

Paint, trim and spec of each of the six E-type 60 Collection pairs to be made available will match the show cars, Jaguar is promising. But one thing you can’t have are the 9600 HP and 77 RW number plates, famous from a million press and publicity shots and now etched into auto industry folklore.

The story of how the two E-types took the world by storm in Geneva 1961 is a special one for sure, from the days when cars were driven across continents to motor shows. A Jaguar PR man was charged with taking the hand-built prototype fixed-head, 9600 HP, from Coventry to Geneva. The story goes he was late leaving and had to utilise all the car’s 150mph performance on the way down through France. He delivered the car to an impatient Sir William Lyons just 20 minutes before the Jaguar founder was due to unveil the car to the world’s press.

Such was the early reaction to the machine – Enzo Ferrari called it the most beautiful car  in the world – that Sir William ordered a second car to go to Geneva poste haste. That was the open-top E-type 77 RW and it too was driven down to Switzerland, fast and non-stop through the night, this time by legendary Jag test driver Norman Dewis.

Such an evocative start to a new model’s career only enhanced the E-type’s reputation for being Britain’s new sports car giant-killer: a car twice as fast as most cars and three times as sexy, all for a fraction the price of top-drawer rivals.

Alas 60 years on “bargain” is unlikely to be a word used with the six E-type 60 Collection pairs. Jaguar doesn’t say how much they will be but with decent Series 1 from £100k (they are unlikely to be the more valuable flat-floor versions), the Swiss tribute duo will cost well into six figures.

Like the Geneva cars, the fixed-head is finished in gunmetal grey (a special colour created for this car and called Flat Out Grey) and the roadster in traditional British racing green, now renamed as Drop Everything Green. Jaguar Classic says each car will be fully restored and feature a number of 60^th anniversary commemorative design details.

“The Jaguar E-type is a genuine icon, as sensational today as the moment it was unveiled in 1961,” Jaguar Classic boss Dan Pink tells us. “The E-type 60 Collection is a lasting tribute for E-type admirers, honouring the car’s legacy and the achievements of the team that created it – many of whom have descendants working for Jaguar Classic today.”