The jaguar e type  is the world’s most iconic classic car. Its arrival on the scene in 1961 sent shock waves through the automotive industry and it’s arguably the greatest sports car of all time. An icon of the Swinging Sixties and a perfect antihero car, it’s the kind of car that even car-haters swoon over.

At the heart of the E-Type is the XK engine, which first appeared in the Jaguar XK120 in 1948. It is a DOHC inline-six cylinder, with a capacity of just under three litres. The resulting 160bhp went a long way towards making the XK120 one of the fastest series production cars in the world.

In the late 1950s, Jaguar began work on a new model to rival the Mercedes 300SL. The project was known as the Zenith, but it would be renamed the E-Type when production began in 1961.

Jaguar E-Type: A Timeless Icon of Automotive Excellence and Elegance

Before the E-Type’s unveiling at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1961, Jaguar loaned it to two of the UK’s major weekly motoring publications for a road test. This helped to give the car a massive boost in visibility before the event.

The initial acclaim for the Jaguar E-Type was immense, and it soon built up a waiting list. This was a problem, because Jag was also producing a number of other models, including the 420 saloon. Technical Director William Heynes pushed to shoehorn a V12 into the E-Type, and this became project XJ25.