XJ13 recreation fires up in London
Show visitors and former Jaguar engineers gather to witness fabled Jaguar erupt into life
THe JaGUar XJ13 recreation by Building The Legend has made its first public appearance at the London Classic Car Show, where creator Neville Swales fired up the engine to the delight not only of the show visitors but also a group of former XJ13 development engineers.
The XJ13 is a copy of the first iteration of Jaguar’s one-off XJ13, before it was crashed during a demo run and subsequently rebuilt to a slightly different specification, in which form it still survives with Jaguar Heritage. It has been a personal labour of love for Neville, using a genuine XJ13 four-cam spare engine, though such has been the interest that orders are now being taken for further cars using regular twin-cam V12s, under the company name of Building The Legend (www.xj13.eu). A recreated four-cam engine is also being drawn up.
Neville was joined at the London Classic Car Show by the XJ13’s original project manager Mike Kimberley (who went on to head first Lotus and then Lamborghini) and XJ13 engineers Peter Taylor, Gerry Beddoes, Frank Philpott and Brian Martin, as well as Richard Hassan, the son of chief engineer Walter Hassan, and Sam and Ceol Sayer, grandson and great-grandson of designer Malcolm Sayer.
Somewhat surprisingly, Neville was given permission to fire up his XJ13 inside the exhibition hall, albeit overlooked by two officials, one with a noise meter, the other holding a fire extinguisher.
‘Even though I was using only a small amount of throttle, the sound was deafening,’ says Neville. ‘The noise was certainly noticed by the show’s visitors… When I looked up from the gauges I saw that people were running towards the sound with looks of “What the…?” on their faces. It felt as if the exposed velocity stacks were sucking in people from all corners of the hall. When I looked up we were surrounded by a mass of enthusiasts.’
The next step for Neville is a full test drive. The aspiration is to have Mike Kimberley sitting alongside original main test driver David Hobbs, recreating the original’s first test drive in 1967. Octane will be there.