£ 130,000

1971 JAGUAR E Type V12 - SOLD

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Description:

This is an online-only auction by Bonhams|Cars Online

This car auction is on www.bonhamscarsonline.com. The price shown is the lower estimate. To see more details, read the full description and see 200+ photographs & video please visit our www.bonhamscarsonline.com. It is free to Register an account and bid. There is no Buy it Now or part-exchange. Here’s a brief excerpt taken from the auction description;

Safe to say, if Enzo had seen this Jaguar E-type first, he may not have been quite so effusive with his praise for its looks. That said, he was a racer at heart and its performance and track record would surely have impressed the great man.

This 1971 Series 3 car was rebuilt by Fred Cliffe for the Modsports racing category in 1977. He acquired a V12 race engine and gearbox from the Broadspeed XJC programme and campaigned the car successfully for nearly a decade, continuing its development until he listed the car for sale in 1986.

Accomplished E-type racer Malcolm Hamilton - sponsored by his own engineering business and supported by Rob Beere Racing - was looking for something faster and Cliffe’s V12E “Beast” caught his eye.

He raced the car mostly within the Aston Martin Owners Club Intermarque series and in his opening season of 1988 posted seven outright wins, four runners-up spots and one third place. In one of those races - at his home circuit of Oulton Park - such was his average speed that he finished over half a minute ahead of the next E-type.

That season earned the car a feature in Jaguar Driver magazine in May 1989, declaring that it “is now considered the world’s fastest V12 E-type.”

But that was BEFORE the 1990 season, where the car was fitted with a larger and even more powerful 7.3-litre V12.

After five years of hard racing - much of it against the likes of Gerry Marshall in his Aston Martin V8 - the Beast took a break for a rebuild during the 1993 and ‘94 seasons. It reappeared in 1995 sporting a large carbon-fibre rear wing taken from a TWR Jaguar XJR-9 “Silk Cut” Le Mans race car. Needless to say, its success continued over the next handful of years, taking more wins and setting lap records at several circuits.

In 2001, the Beast was taken to the Woodbridge Speed Trials - essentially a straight-line blast up the runway of the former RAF and USAF base - where it was clocked at a staggering 184 mph, having reached 150 mph in around 8 seconds.

Sadly, being side-swiped by a Porsche in an accident at Oulton Park later that year ended the car’s competitive career - but what a record; 52 race victories and 87 podium finishes.

Our vendor has a lifelong passion for Jaguars - and especially the E-type - and has owned several, including other racing models. He was previously active in the Jaguar Drivers Club and has written for the Jaguar Enthusiast Magazine and has published a book on Jaguar competition E-types.

He also collected memorabilia - like damaged body panels from racing E-types. When he approached Rob Beere and asked if he had anything suitable, he really wasn’t expecting to be offered a whole car in pieces, let alone The Beast, which had lain dormant for most of the noughties.

With the deal done in 2009, he eventually started to put the car back together four years later, preserving and restoring it as closely as possible to its last competitive specification. The project took him 2-3 years, having to send the car away for some of the specialist jobs.

Since completion, the car has been looked after by a race transportation and storage company not far from Silverstone. The Beast was requested by the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust to be displayed at Gaydon for the 60th Anniversary of the E-type, and was also invited to Brooklands for the Jaguar 100 year celebrations.

The car has also been the subject of numerous magazine articles and publications - not to mention the owner’s recent book, “Jaguar E-type Factory and Private Competition Cars”.

This lot is available for viewing/inspection. Please contact us via www.bonhamscarsonline.com to make an appointment.

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