In 1956, Jaguar withdrew from racing and had a surplus of unsold D-Type race cars. The company decided to convert these racing cars into road-legal cars. They added a passenger side door, a plush interior, side screens, and a folding roof. They took out the massive fin behind the driver too. The Jaguar XKSS production was limited to only 25 cars. 16 of these cars were sold while 9 were destroyed when a fire broke out at Coventry factory where it was manufactured.
Some 60 years after the first XKSS was converted into a road going vehicle, Jaguar has decided to continue the last remaining 9 cars of the production run. It would be in essence a “new” old car.
The XKSS will be hand built from the ground up.
The XKSS back in the day was no slouch when it came to performance and retained a lot of its racing heritage. It sports a 3.4 liter straight six engine producing 250bhp. The XKSS also retains the racing suspension setup it used when it was running around Le Mans. The transmission in this racer is a four-speed manual and has rear wheel drive.
Since this is essentially a race car for the road (albeit a 1950’s one) and it will be hand built to its original specs 60 years after the first car went out of the factory doors, it will also come with a huge price tag. You can own one of the 9 cars to be produced if you can afford the £1,000,000 price.If you think about it, for that amount of money you can but some high-tech Pagani or Koenigsegg with around four times more horsepower. But this, my friends, is a gentleman’s race car. One has to wonder how much one of the original 1957 XKSS would go for at auction these days. It would probably be worth more now because of the price tag on the “new” cars.
So, will you spend your cash on a new old car or buy a whole lot of current generation supercars?
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