Jaguar C-Type
Jaguar C-Type | |
---|---|
XK6 I6 | |
Chronology | |
Successor | Jaguar D-Type |
The Jaguar C-Type (officially called the Jaguar XK120-C) is a racing sports car built by Jaguar and sold from 1951 to 1953. The "C" stands for "competition".
The car combined the running gear of the contemporary, road-proven XK120, with a lightweight tubular frame designed by Jaguar Chief Engineer William Heynes, and an aerodynamic aluminium body, jointly developed by William Heynes, R J (Bob) Knight and later Malcolm Sayer. A total of 53 C-Types were built, 43 of which were sold to private owners, mainly in the US.[1]
Specification
The road-going XK120's 3.4-litre
Racing
The C-Type was successful in racing, most notably at the
In
In
In
Further weight was saved by using a rubber bag fuel tank ... lighter electrical equipment and thinner gauge steel for some of the chassis tubes ... [T]he most significant change to the cars were the triple Weber carburetors and [switch to] disc brakes.[5]
Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt won the race at 105.85 mph (170.35 km/h) – the first time Le Mans had been won at an average of over 100 miles per hour (161 km/h).[1]
Disc brakes were novel in 1953, and Jaguar's win, partly due to their superiority, set off a scramble to include discs in production cars.
1954, the C-Type's final year at Le Mans, saw a fourth place by the
Values
When new, the car sold for about $6,000, approximately twice the price of an XK120. In an article in the 11 June 2003 issue of Autocar magazine ("Slick Cat Jaguar", p. 70) the value of a "genuine, healthy" C-Type is estimated as £400,000, and the value of the 1953 Le Mans winner is about £2 million; replicas are available from a variety of sources from £40,000. A C-Type once owned and raced by Phil Hill sold at an American auction in August 2009 for $2,530,000 and another C-type was sold at the Pebble Beach auction in 2012 for $3,725,000,[6] Recently an unrestored C-Type that raced at Le Mans has sold for £5,715,580, during the Grand Prix Historique race meeting in Monaco. In August 2015, an ex-Ecurie Ecosse Lightweight C-type, chassis XKC052 and the second of only three works lightweights, driven by Peter Whitehead and Ian Stewart to fourth at the 1953 Le Mans 24 Hours, fetched $13.2 million (£8.4 million) at auction in California.[7][8]
Notes
- ^ a b c d "Jaguar C-Type & Jaguar D-Type - Victors of Le Mans 60 Years Ago". www.snaplap.net. 23 September 2015. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
- ^ Porter 1995, pp. 40, 41.
- ^ Porter 1995, p. 42.
- ^ Fearnley, Paul (13 June 2013). "Le Mans 1953: Jaguar's gigantic leap". Motor Sport. Archived from the original on 13 October 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^ Porter 1995, p. 46.
- ^ "1953 Jaguar C-Type". Gooding & Company. Archived from the original on 2 June 2017. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^ Hudson, Paul (16 May 2016). "Jaguar C-type fetches £5.7m at auction". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^ "1953 Jaguar C-Type Works Lightweight". RM Sotheby's. Archived from the original on 20 July 2015. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
References
- Porter, Philip (1995). Jaguar Sports Racing Cars. Bay View Books. ISBN 1901432211.
External links
- Coventry Racers – Pages for each of the 54 C-Types, including photos and short histories for many.