![]() Their paint jobs - Flat Out Grey and Drop Everything Green, in honor of their hasty journeys to Geneva - are exact recreations of the colors of the show cars. They are being completely rebuilt, and the engines, gauges, electrical systems and more will be modernized. Here’s something else that will be special about the so-called E-Type 60 Collection: The pairs are Series 1 E-Types from the early 1960s, not replicas. No pricing has been revealed, but the continuation cars’ base prices were $440,000 each. The catch is they are sold only in pairs. As a commemoration, Jaguar is offering six pairs - a coupe and a convertible - in the same livery as the Geneva show cars, for sale to the public. ![]() But they made it, and that storied introduction helped propel the E-Types to a production run that lasted a completely unanticipated 13 years.īut this year, the company decided that the E-Type had earned its own special remembrance. Had the cars not made it to Geneva 60 years ago, it certainly would have been a world-class embarrassment, and might have dampened the enthusiasm. Impressively, both vehicles are still with us the coupe, with the license plate 9600 HP, is in private hands the convertible, tagged 77 RW, is still in Jaguar’s collection and is scheduled to be exhibited in the British Museum. When the two cars returned to England, they had covered a total of 3,400 miles - not bad for preproduction prototypes not intended for that kind of hard use. Indeed, the smitten crowd placed orders for 500 E-Types. He added, “As soon as Bob Berry saw me, he came over and said: ‘Thank God you’ve made it. I averaged 68 m.p.h., including the ferry crossing.” Across customs checks and through border crossings. “It was mostly two-lane roads, through small towns, all the way. “It was in the days before motorways in the U.K., or the autoroute in France,” Dewis said in an interview at a concours event in Amelia Island, Fla. Lyons hadn’t planned to introduce both cars in Geneva, but the response to the coupe was so staggering he changed his mind.ĭewis, who died two years ago at age 98, vividly recalled the story of his journey, shortly before his death. “It was the most incredible journey of my life, and I’ve never forgotten it.”Īn even more hair-raising journey was in store for Norman Dewis, Jaguar’s estimable test driver, who was still back in Coventry with the E-Type convertible. “It was the only car I actually drove flat out from one end to the other of a journey,” Berry recalled years later, according to a Jaguar history. William Lyons, the company president, said, “Good God, Berry, I thought you weren’t going to get here.” There was barely time for the steaming coupe to be wiped down. ![]() He arrived just 20 minutes before the scheduled unveiling on Geneva’s waterfront, against the backdrop of its famous water jet fountain. Now critically late, to make up for lost time Berry set out on the drive of his life. ![]() But he ran into fog that lasted until Reims, in France. Too late to transport it, a public relations manager, Bob Berry, decided to drive it, catching the midnight ferry from Dover. So after that joy ride, the coupe was still drawing attention at Jaguar’s headquarters in Coventry, England, long after it was supposed to have left for Geneva. ![]()
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