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Jaguar built more than 72,000 E-types between 1961 and 1974, so if one falls prey to mad scientists converting it into an electric lab rat, we may cringe but ultimately move on.
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It should be criminal to molest an E-type—the only sports car Enzo Ferrari coveted more than his own and a permanent fixture in New York’s Museum of Modern Art—by replacing its stirring straight-six with a box of soulless batteries. But Jaguar has done this deed itself, and among fine creations by Singer and Icon, the E-type Zero is about as tasteful as restomods get.
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Jaguar Classic, the factory restoration shop that opened last year, found a 1968 E-type roadster that likely had seen all of its best days. Unlike many EV conversions, this is no messy, tangled-wire hack job. Jaguar fitted a 40-kWh lithium-ion battery pack under the hood with more spot-on precision than Coventry assemblers would have exercised bolting in the original 4.2-liter six-cylinder engine.
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The 295-hp electric motor and reduction gear fit exactly where the four-speed manual transmission sat, with all power routing to the stock rear differential. The EV components—developed with aid from Rimac, creator of the nutso, 1224-hp Concept One—can be swapped out for the original gas-swilling, carbureted powertrain, and that’s not simply to safeguard this E-type’s heritage. By fabricating all-new parts with similar sizes and shapes, Jaguar claims it hasn’t altered weight distribution, even as it shaved off 100 pounds. The suspension and brakes also are intact.
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LED headlights replace the ’60s sealed-beam units, while inside, it’s an electronic feast of LCD screens and modern switchgear. A digital instrument panel with analog-style dials contrasts with the wood-rimmed, airbag-free steering wheel. Carbon-fiber trim and a large touchscreen replace the central gauges, with only four of the original toggle switches remaining. Jaguar’s rotary shifter sits in the aluminum-trimmed center stack, flanking a chrome e-brake handle and a rubber holder for those little battery-powered things people carried with them everywhere in the 2010s. Jaguar’s goal was to “future-proof classic-car ownership,” assuming future generations will use AC electricity and SAE J1772 plugs.
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Jaguar says the E-type Zero can hit 62 mph in 5.5 seconds, or about a second quicker than a 265-hp 1960s E-type. The Zero could have been quicker, but engineers didn’t want to upset the car’s delicate chassis by feeding it SVR-level firepower. Since Jaguar’s straight-six XK engine was, in essence, the same from 1949 to 1992, the company hints that it could retrofit an XJ6 or an XK120 as easily as it did this E-type. Common sense would caution against adding more electrical components to old Jaguars, but that’s a decision best made with a glass of Scotch in hand and a sizable bank account.
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- Archived Road Test: 1961 Jaguar E-type Roadster
- Groovy, Baby! Jaguar Puts the E-type Back into Production (Sort Of)
- Re-creating, and Improving, the Porsche 911, Ford Bronco, and Jaguar E-type
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As one of the first “Series 1.5” E-types, this 1968 model isn’t worth the dough you’d get for a Series I (1961–1967), but collectors typically price them higher than the Series II (which did away with the covered headlamps and gained bigger bumpers) and the more ungainly Series III V-12 cars (1971–1974). Post–Series I E-types are highly undervalued, which may be the only justification to silence this beautiful car’s exhaust. Well, that and so it can cruise through central London in a century far less tolerant of a little smoke.
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