Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Drivetimeextra
Days after revealing its allelectric future in Los Angeles, Jaguar has turned the clock back almost 60 years.
The company’s Classic vehicle engineering unit has taken the wraps off the first genuine Jaguar XKSS to be built since 1957.
It will form the blueprint for the production of nine of the historic, D-Type-based two-seaters which will be built over the next year.
Each will cost more than £1 million – but don’t rush for your check book, because all nine have been pre-sold, unseen, to what Jaguar calls “a select group of established collectors and customers” around the world.
Fittingly, perhaps, Jaguar chose to unveil this classic masterpiece in LaLa land only days after the company’s battery-powered I-Pace supersports SUV – scheduled for production in 2018 - was revealed at the Los Angeles auto show.
But this is no replica model – it has been been authentically produced to the exact 1957 specification of the XKSS, only 16 of which were built before a fire at the company’s Borwns Lane, Coventry, factory destroyed nine cars along with the styling bucks used to create them.
Often referred to as the world’s first supercar, the XKSS was originally made by Jaguar as a road-going conversion of the Le Mans-winning D-type, which was built from 1954-1956.
The XKSS unveiled in Los Angeles is what Jaguar calls “a period correct continuation”, built using a combination of original drawings from Jaguar’s archive and modern technology. The Jaguar Classic engineering team scanned several versions of the 1957 XKSS to help build a complete digital