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The tale of the Lightweight E-types is long, convoluted and much covered in print, mostly by Philip Porter. Indeed, the first subject for his publishing company’s Great Cars series was the first Lightweight, 4 WPD. This book, number nine in the series, places one of the low-drag coupé versions under the forensic lens, the car raced and developed by Peter Lumsden and Peter Sargent: 49 FXN.
Being called Peter was clearly an advantage in the low-drag coupé world, the ‘British Peters’ meeting Peters Lindner and Nöcker and their own, differently developed coupé on Europe’s circuits. Maybe you thought all the low-drag cars had a common genesis, but the various aero-enhanced coupés ploughed their own individual furrows, far from factory influence.
The point of this hefty and beautifully produced book is the examination of that furrow, from the purchase of 49 FXN in 1961, via metamorphosis into its definitive form, through its owners, races, misfortunes and remedies to its deliciously authentic, properly restored condition today.
This E-type began in 1963 as one of the original, aluminium-monococque, fuel-injected Lightweight roadsters, and crashed heavily in its very first race, the Nürburgring 1000km. Re-shelled, thus using up another of the planned run of 18 shells, it raced busily onwards until aerodynamics expert and mechanical wizard Sami Klat, who had worked with Frank Costin, came up in 1964 with ideas for a more wind-cheating form. Instead of using a wind tunnel, he took photographs of the modified E-type moving on a motorway, string tufts aligning with the airflow.
The book covers this and every other development in such depth that, for this Lightweight, Porter has shared the task with author James Page. There are interviews with Klat and the British Peters, with racing rivals of the time, and with every surviving subsequent owner as 49 FXN moved from frontline GT racer to club machine and drag racer, from Britain to the US and back, from dark green through red-and-gold, metallic blue, a too-bright green and now back to correct darkness.
There are tales of filler and chicken-wire as Klat’s original shape was re-approximated after a skirmish, images of the original build sheet, the registration book and invoices. There are myriad racing shots and a fabulous photo gallery of the car as it is today. Nothing is left out. Prepare for a long read.