NO GLASSFIBRE ,NO GUESSWORK
Enthusiast and race-car engineer Cyril Linstone created this C-type from scratch using Jaguar’s original factory drawings. How does it measure up?
Idrove an early Jaguar C-type once, a 1952 example that has entered more races than any other. It wore its history with battered pride; unrestored, it oozed patina from every paint-flake, chip and crevice. Now I’m driving another C-type. Same shape, same structure, largely the same innards. One big difference: it’s a brand-new build, just as Jaguar’s continuation run of Lightweight E-types and XKSSs are brand-new builds. However, this C-type hasn’t been built by Jaguar, JLR Classic, the Special Vehicle Operations department, its associated moderncar factory or its various subcontractors. It has been built, from original Jaguar drawings and using many original Jaguar parts, by 86-year-old Cyril Linstone in his garage. And now, having done that, Cyril feels a bit bereft.
Cyril’s son Mark shows me round. I’d met Mark before thanks to a shared interest in twostroke Saabs. What I hadn’t realised was that he is a seasoned racer who won the first Monaco Historic race for 1.5-litre Formula 1 cars in a Brabham BT11. Between 1987 and 1991 Mark raced an Emeryson Formula 3 car from the early 1950s. Which brings us neatly back to Cyril, who is the perfect dad for the son who wants to go racing.
Cyril built his first car in 1949, a supercharged special based on the wreck of a pre-war Ford Model Y given to him on his 17th birthday. In 1950 he drove to the Isle of Man in it for the Manx Cup, following his friend Basil de Lisa, whose old Vauxhall also contained Paul Emery.
There began Cyril’s friendship with Emery and his involvement with the Emeryson racing cars, a friendship that continued through Emery’s venture into Formula 1, his years of tuning and racing Hillman Imps and right up to Paul’s death in 1993. ‘Between 1945 and 1965, only two people designed new cars for every new Formula 1 regulation,’ Cyril declares. ‘Enzo Ferrari and Paul Emery.’
Cyril still dabbled in racing preparation, and Mark has carried on the tradition at today’s Linstone Classics. The C-type has been squirted around the estate where Linstone Classics has its workshop, but today, at the Longcross test track, is its first proper run. And I am to be the first to drive the C-type at speed, through all its gears. That’s some burden of trust to carry.
Yes, on one level it’s a replica. But Cyril reckons it’s a more accurate replica than any other, be they simple glassfibre-bodied lookalikes or a sophisticated Lynx. It’s almost
entirely faithful to the original, thanks to diligent adherence to those drawings. It’s made from Jaguar’s own C-type blueprints, so does that make it a proper C-type even if it didn’t emerge from Browns Lane? That’s a discussion that could continue for hours, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t feel fully authentic. Yes?
Yes, apart from one thing. Given the years of expertise that have been applied to Jaguar’s XK engine since its arrival in 1948, it’s hard not to make the engine a bit better than it was back in the day. Peter Lander of Sigma Engineering, a leading light in racing Jaguar engines and a mere youth at 81, built a motor for Cyril’s C-type, which produces 240bhp via a pair of giant SU H8 carburettors from its C-type-correct 3442cc. It’s described as a ‘fast road’ engine, despite having usefully more power than even the triple-Weber-fed works