Enzo Ferrari reportedly called it the most beautiful car ever made, and the Museum of Modern Art keeps one in its permanent collection, which is not something most sports cars can claim. The Series I E-Type ran from 1961 to 1968 on a 3.8 liter twin-cam six with triple SU carburetors, and the earliest cars have identifying details worth serious money. Read on for what separates a flat-floor car from everything that followed.
There is a compliment in the car world so well worn that people repeat it without realizing how strange it is. The head of one company looked at a rival’s new sports car and reportedly declared it the most beautiful automobile he had ever seen. Manufacturers do not normally say things like that about competitors, and the man in question was not known for generosity toward anyone. Sixty years later the car he was describing sits in the permanent collection of a major modern art museum, which places it in the company of chairs by Eames and lamps by Noguchi rather than in the company of other cars. What is easy to forget is that when it launched it also happened to be one of the fastest things on the road, and it undercut its rivals substantially on price.
Geneva 1961 and an All-Night Drive From Coventry
The Jaguar E-Type, sold as the XKE in North America, was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1961, and the launch itself has become part of the legend. Jaguar needed a second car in Geneva at short notice, and test driver Norman Dewis famously drove one overnight from Coventry to Switzerland to make the show, arriving with the sort of margin that gives modern press fleet managers nightmares. The initial production cars were built for export, and the E-Type was not available to buyers in the United Kingdom until July 1961. Enzo Ferrari’s reported reaction dates from around this moment, and Jaguar has been quietly grateful for it ever since.
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The Compliment From Maranello, and Who Actually Drew It
The Ferrari compliment has been repeated so often that its origins have gone soft, and no one has produced a definitive citation for exactly when or to whom it was said. What is beyond dispute is who deserved the credit if it was said at all, and it was not a stylist in the conventional sense. The E-Type’s shape came from Malcolm Sayer, an aerodynamicist who had worked in the aircraft industry and who approached body design mathematically rather than artistically, using calculated curves derived from his work on the Le Mans winning C-Type and D-Type. The long bonnet, the tapering tail and the elliptical cross section were all functional decisions about airflow that happened to produce one of the most admired shapes of the twentieth century. Beauty was the by-product of a man solving a drag problem with a slide rule.
Flat Floors, Outside Latches and the Cars Collectors Chase
The cars collectors chase hardest come from the very beginning of the run. The earliest examples use an external bonnet latch that requires a special tool to open, and they have flat floor pans. Slightly later in production the latch moved to a release under the dash and the floors were dished to give occupants more legroom, which was a real improvement for anyone over average height and a real loss for anyone valuing originality half a century later. Leather upholstery was standard at first, giving way to a leather and vinyl combination after 1963, and wire wheels were an available option that almost every surviving car seems to wear.
What the XK6 Engine Actually Delivered
Mechanically the Series I is powered by Jaguar’s XK6, a 3.8 liter twin overhead camshaft inline six fed by triple SU carburetors. This engine was not new in 1961, having already proven itself at Le Mans in the C-Type and D-Type, and that racing pedigree is a substantial part of why the E-Type could deliver its performance so reliably. Period claims of 150 mph have been picked over by historians for decades and depend heavily on which specific car was tested, but there is no dispute that the E-Type was among the quickest things available to a private buyer, at roughly half the price of the exotic competition.
Monocoque Tub, Torsion Bars and Discs All Round
The structure is more advanced than the styling lets on. The E-Type uses a monocoque centre tub with a tubular front subframe carrying the engine and front suspension, an arrangement borrowed directly from racing practice. Suspension is independent at both ends, with torsion bars at the front and a coil sprung independent rear that was genuinely sophisticated for a road car in 1961. Brakes are discs at all four corners, with the rears mounted inboard to reduce unsprung weight. That combination is why the car handled and stopped as well as it went, which was not something every fast car of the period could claim.
How to Identify a Series I on Sight
Identifying a Series I is straightforward once you know the markers. Look for glass covers over the headlights, used until 1967. The grille opening is small compared with later cars. The twin exhaust pipes exit below the rear number plate, and both front and rear turn signals sit above the bumpers rather than below them. Later Series I and a half cars, built as American regulations tightened, lose the headlight covers while keeping much else, and they occupy a slightly awkward position in the market as a result.
The 4.2 Arrives, and the 2+2 Follows
The range broadened as the decade went on. In 1964 the 3.8 liter engine was enlarged to 4.2 liters, gaining torque and, more importantly for anyone actually driving one, a properly synchronized gearbox to replace the Moss unit with its unsynchronized first gear. Seats and electrics improved at the same time. In 1966 Jaguar added a 2+2 coupe on a longer wheelbase with a taller roofline, which purists have complained about ever since and which remains the only version you can put children in. All of this happened while the roadster and fixed head coupe continued alongside.
A Sports Car in an Art Museum
The museum connection is the detail that best captures the car’s standing. The Museum of Modern Art in New York holds a blue E-Type roadster in its permanent collection, acquired on the strength of the design rather than the engineering. Values today reflect that dual identity: flat floor outside latch cars command extraordinary money, good Series I 3.8 roadsters are firmly six figures, and the 2+2 remains the value entry point for anyone who wants the shape without the auction result. As with every complex sixties car, condition and documented history beat everything else on the list. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Jaguar isn’t a muscle car.
Henry
tell what is a muscle car or what you would like to read-I will oblige you but for me I would say the XKE is a sports car with muscle and I like any vehicle that performs well-I like to offer my readers a VARIETY of knowledge on any vehicle with POWER-including lesser powered models of American cars to give an over view of the high profile models
Web definitions-this is a British dictionary definition of “muscle car”
Muscle car is a term used to refer to a variety of high-performance automobiles. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines muscle cars as “any of a group of American-made 2-door sports coupes with powerful engines designed for high-performance driving. …
Thanks for the feedback Editor musclecarfan-you can call me Ross-or Joe-just don’t call me late for dinner