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VINTAGE: E-Type Lightened To Compete
Slippery aluminum bodies cut weight as Jaguar tackled Ferrari and Shelby in sports-carr racing. 50 year sago.
Wouter Melissen  | http://www.ultimatecarpage.com  |  Posted June 20, 2011   Goodwood (GB)
The famed Jaguar E-Type Lightweight Low Drag Coupe is a familiar sight to vintage racers in Europe, where it competes in a variety of events. (Photo: Wouter Melissen)
One of the main themes of the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed will be Jaguar in general and the E-Type in particular. The legendary model celebrates its 50th birthday this year and will star on the annual “installation” placed in front of the Goodwood House for the annual event, from June 30 to July 3.

There will also be a special class in the Cartier Style et Luxury Concours d'Elegance for the E-Type. Another anniversary celebrated will be Jaguar's first Le Mans victory 60 years ago.

After the extensive restoration of its mangled wreckage, the Lindner/Nocker E-Type race car was displayed for the first time at the recent Concorso de Villa d'Este. (Photo: Wouter Melissen)
Among the many E-Types expected at Goodwood is the Lightweight Low Drag Coupe. Of the two examples featured, one is a familiar sight for Goodwood visitors as it has competed in the Revival TT race during the past few years. The other was involved in a fatal crash back in 1964 and has only very recently been restored to its former glory. The mangled bodywork alone took more than 5,000 hours to restore and amazingly, more than 90 percent of the original metal was saved.

We captured this, the Lindner/Nocker Lighweight, at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este, where its beautiful lines were admired by all. The owner confirmed that this example will definitely be part of the E-Type celebrations at Goodwood and it would be surprising if the other will not join it. That would be the first time the two E-Type Lightweight Low Drag Coupes will be reunited since 1964.

Conceived as as a road car, the Jaguar E-Type was nevertheless a regular sight at racing tracks shortly after its launch at the 1961 Geneva Motorshow. This was hardly a surprise since the chassis and engine design derived from the three-time Le Mans winning D-Type. To keep the costs of production down, Jaguar fitted the E-Type with a steel body. This proved to be a big handicap when the E-Types faced such thoroughbred rivals as the Ferrari 250 GTO, Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato and Shelby Cobra, which all used feather-light aluminum bodies.

The light aluminum body and engine block helped trim 440 pounds from the overall weight of a steel E=Type. (Photo: Wouter Melissen)
One of the most successful of these early racing E-Types was the John Coombs prepared example that was raced by Roy Salvadori and Graham Hill in 1961 and 1962. The only upgrades fitted on this car were a wide-angle head and triple Webers. The performance of Salvadori and Hill in the steel E-Type sparked an interest inside Jaguar's dormant competition department at the end of 1962. It was decided to construct a proper competition version of the E-Type, and John Coombs was invited to the factory to have his successful machine serve as the prototype.

To retain the E-Type's homologation as a GT car, the body could be modified but not the chassis, so the steel monocoque was retained. A new body was constructed that looked virtually identical to the production road car but was fabricated completely from aluminum. To improve the aerodynamics, a separate hard-top roof was added with a small vent at the rear. Some of the later cars were bodied with full fast-back coupe bodies that proved to be even more efficient.

Under its lightweight shell, the new competition E-Type featured such changes as an aluminum cylinder block instead of the cast-iron lump fitted in the road cars. Together with the revised body, this helped cut the weight by more than 440 pounds. The revised 3.8-liter engine was fitted with Lucas fuel injection, which helped lift the power to well over 300 horsepower. All of this was transferred to the rear wheels through a five-speed, close-ratio gearbox.

The Jaguar's 3.8-liter straight-six engine was fitted with Lucas fuel injection, which raised performance t0 300 horsepower. (Photo: Wouter Melissen)
Simply dubbed the “Lightweight E-Type,” Jaguar's new race car was entrusted to privateer entrants, some of whom received factory support. Among them was, of course, John Coombs but also American Briggs Cunningham, who ordered three cars for an all-out assault on Le Mans. One of the first major outings for the Lightweight was the 1963 Sebring 12 Hours where two examples placed seventh and eighth overall. They finished first and second in the 4-liter GT class but were beaten by three Ferrari 250 GTOs that raced in the under 3-liter class.

At Le Mans, the three Lightweight E-Types looked absolutely splendid in the Cunningham colors of white with two blue-stripes. The high-speed track had traditionally favored Jaguars, so hopes for a good result were high. The cars were competitive in the practice session but the race started disastrously; two of the three E-Types were out before the 40th lap was completed. The surviving example finished ninth overall and second in class behind a Shelby Cobra. Most worrisome of all was that the smaller-engine Ferrari 250 GTOs turned out to be considerably quicker.

While the Lightweight E-Type was proven to be “too little, too late” in the major events, it did score the odd win in national events. In England, Peter Sutcliffe was very competitive in his example and German Jaguar distributor Peter Lindner won several races in his coupe-bodied Lightweight. Sadly, he suffered a fatal crash behind the wheel of his car at Montlhery in the fall of 1964. By that time, Jaguar had long lost interest in the project. Eventually, only 12 examples were constructed, including the Coombs prototype.
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Wouter Melissen

UltimateCarPage.com

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