Keeping a rich history alive at Jaguar Classic Works
A shop full of experts and artisans can build you a fine showroom-ready classic
There is money in nostalgia. Ferrari was the first automaker to truly realize this when it started its Classiche program, which verifies the authenticity of a restoration. But now Jaguar has done the prancing horse one better, with its impressive Classic Works program.
Jaguar Classic Works is not a new operation, but it has moved into a brand new facility and is working on more projects now than ever before. To oversimplify, they make brand new classic cars.
Restorations take place under the company’s Reborn program, and the first step is for the customers to pick out what car they want. For example, if they wanted an E-Type, they could choose Series 1, 2, or 3, coupe or roadster, and right-hand drive or left-hand drive. Each variation has a different value, so some combinations will cost more than others. The most valuable E-Type would be a Series 1 roadster in righthand drive and that would set you back more than US$450,000. Less desirable E-Type variants can be bought for around $300,000.
Jaguar says the exact science of sourcing these cars is an industry secret. About 500 classics are kept in the warehouse for restoration and the company buys up some great finds in the U.S. These are actual 45-plus- year-old classics being restored, not new re-creations.
From when a car is sourced to when the customer drives it home is a full 18-month process. The donor car is stripped down to bare metal and completely reassembled by expert technicians. The Works shop hosts a full engine-rebuild centre, and paint and bodywork are done off-site to reduce the amount of dust in the shop.
Customers are allowed to mildly upgrade their cars. For example, you could fit larger Series 3 brakes to a Series 1 E-Type, or if the donor car was originally brown they’d happily paint it red for you. However, requests for fuel injection and Bluetooth will be ignored.
It’s not only classic sports cars that get turned around here. The shop will work on any Jaguar Land Rover product and even has a dedicated “assembly line” for Series 1 Land Rovers that you can buy perfectly restored. It moves a bit slower than the factory did in 1948, but the processes used to assemble the rigs are much the same.
The mechanics and technicians that staff the place border on artisans. In some cases, the people restoring the vehicles are the same ones who staffed the assembly lines when the cars were made, many decades ago. But the majority of the staff is made up of specialists at the top of their fields. For example, some are trained to do only engine work, others to do bodywork, and some for general assembly. Jaguar has had access to these people as contractors previously, but when the new facility was built, it brought them to work under one roof.
Aside from doing complete restorations, the shop also maintains historic Jaguars of all kinds. A full wall of the massive centre is devoted to servicing XJ220 supercars. Marque specialists work to keep Jaguar’s 1990s V6 masterpiece in top condition. Jaguar also began offering new XJ220 tires made by Bridgestone, something that doesn’t sound like much until you realize that the XJ220 used a tire with very odd and specific dimensions, which have been out of production for years. Now with fresh rubber available, owners can use their cars to the fullest without worrying about smoking their tires.
At the back of the brightly lit and hospital-clean shop is where Jaguar keeps classics awaiting their day in the sun: some 500 classic Jaguars, Land Rovers, Range Rovers, and others. It’s an astounding collection of steel, aluminum, and carbon fibre. Not every vehicle stored here is a dilapidated classic; the facility is also used to hold more modern but historically significant Jaguars, such as two orange CX-75s used in the James Bond film Spectre.
Jaguar is coy about where it sourced the cars and how much was paid, but nearly 400 of them came from a single collection that Jaguar bought outright. Some cars look like they could drive away with only a fresh battery, and others were literally dragged out of swamps. This huge stock of vehicles is carefully catalogued and waiting for the right customer to order a restoration.
Jaguar Classic Works is a living, breathing, brick and mortar monument to Jaguar’s commitment to honour its past. Not only does Jaguar have a long, proud history to draw from, but it also has a sea of enthusiasts — including some with very deep pockets — who love keeping these classics alive.