This Week in Motorhead History – The Jaguar XK-E Turns 55

“An earth-shaker from Great Britain” is how the influential writer Ken Purdy described the original Jaguar XK-E, a car stunning in looks and performance when it made its debut on March 21, 1961, and a car that remains stunning in looks and performance to this day.

How stunning?  Sufficiently so that we remember Purdy’s words, half a century after reading them as a car-crazy child.

Features of the E-Type –  XK-E moniker was unique to the North American market – are commonplace today, but in 1961 disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, independent coil spring rear suspension, and monocoque construction were groundbreaking in a production car.  Those features, combined with the car’s near 150-mph capability and its overtly sexy styling made the Jaguar XK-E the motoring touchstone that it is.

Originally equipped with a 3.8L inline six, the E-Type was a premium but pure sports car, with leather seats, aluminum trim, and a four-speed manual transmission.  Over the course of 15 model years the car evolved and changed such that by the early 1970s it was more of a Grand Tourer, with a larger body, a 5.3L twelve-cylinder engine, and available with such features as an automatic transmission, power steering, and air conditioning.

But, while the changes through the years diluted the visceral appeal of the E-Type, the later cars suffer in comparison only to the earlier ones.  The later E-Types may not be as compelling as the early cars, but they are beautiful nonetheless.

The early cars became an integral part of the “swingin’ sixties” and were featured extensively in the general press and in movies.  The result was that, for a car produced in relatively small numbers – fewer than 75,000 worldwide, less than what Toyota builds in a week – everyone in America knew what a Jaguar XK-E was.  While today it may no longer resonate with the general populace, among the motoring cognoscenti, the Jaguar XK-E, the E-Type, continues to inspire awe.

Image top right selected from Wikipedia Commons. 

Image middle left selected from Flickr. 

Image bottom right selected from Flickr.