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Jaguar/Daimler: Jaguar’s ‘new’ Lightweight E-Type

16 June, 2014

 


Back in the ’60s, Jaguar built 12 examples of marque’s famous Lightweight E-Type — a car that featured an all-aluminium body and engine block and a stripped-out interior. At the time, Jaguar had expected to construct a series of 18 examples between 1963 and 1964 but, at the time, they only got around to producing 12 — finally, fifty years later, Jaguar’s Heritage division is planning to complete the originally proposed run of 18 by building six more Lightweight E-Types using chassis numbers assigned but unused in the 1960s.

Originally produced specifically for racing, the Lightweight E-types were designed to take the fight to rivals from Ferrari on the track.

The six ‘new’ models will be built to the exact specifications of  ’60s originals – including the all–aluminium 3.8-litre straight–six engine and aluminium body.

Pricing information will be revealed closer to the car’s launch later this summer but don’t expect these cars to be cheap, bearing in mind that one of those genuine Lightweight E-Type from the ’60s would set you back several million bucks.

1975 Suzuki RE5

1 November, 2024

Suzuki had high hopes for its RE5 Wankel-engined bike launched in 1975. It had started looking at the Wankel engine in the mid-60s and bought the licence to the concept in 1970.
Apparently all of the big four Japanese makers experimented with the design, Yamaha even showing a rotary-engined bike at a motor show in 1972. But Suzuki was the only one of the big four to go into production. Like many others at the time, Suzuki believed that the light, compact, free-revving Wankel design would consign piston engines — with their complex, multiple, whirring valves and pistons, which (can you believe it?) had to reverse direction all the time — to history.

Westside story

25 October, 2024

For the young Dave Blyth, the Sandman was always the coolest car and he finally got one when he was 50. “I have always had a rule. When you turn 50, you buy or can afford to buy the car you lusted after when you were 20. I was 20 in 1979 and the HZ Sandman came out in 1978. It was the coolest of the cool — I just wanted one,” he says. “Back then a Sandman cost $4500 new and a house was worth about $20,000. I made about $30 a week so it was an impossible dream then.”
Dave was heavily influenced by the panel van culture of the time. “I started with an Escort panel van and upgraded to a Holden HD panel van with a 186ci six cylinder. I started a van club, Avon City Vans.