In the C-Type’s case, the run is of 16 cars, and if you have a loose £1.5 million (plus taxes), you can have one of the final eight cars. It’s an absurd price on one level of course, less so if you consider that one of the original 53 cars will cost you upwards of £3m.
When you learn of the work that has gone into the recreation of this car you begin to realise how a seven-digit price tag develops. The 3.4-litre XK engine block has been retooled. The complex Dunlop disc brake system, developed out of early-1950s aviation technology, has been reverse-engineered. Intensive detail work followed the recreation of the car in digital form from original blueprints and the measurement of original cars.
The 1953 Le Mans-winning iteration of the C-Type was chosen for recreation, this version featuring the-then revolutionary disc brakes and triple Weber carburation for a 220bhp power output.
As it weighs only 1063kg, this C-Type goes really rather well – and feels appealingly odd, too. The oddness stems from the car’s newness. Even aboard an expensively restored old car, you’re likely to find components that hint at its age. Not so in this Jaguar, where every old-fashioned-looking item is new and consistently so. That extends to the physical experience, too, this car feeling taut, tight, strong and rattle-free, just as a new car should.