Eagle
Low Drag GT
Eagle was founded in 1982 by Henry Pearman. Henry knows a
fair bit about Jaguar E-types. He will sell you a standard car, but only if it
is one of the very best. Don't expect to find much on his stock list under £ 100,000,
and standard road-going Es with an interesting history can nudge £ 300,000 now.
He will restore your E-Type, but only if you commit to having every last nut
done: ‘we're not interested in half-doing things’.
Or he will build you an Eagle E-Type, which is a standard-looking
car with a bunch of 'enhancements' refined over 20 years and including AP
Racing brakes, Ohlins suspension, power steering, air-conditioning and
electricals that actually work, unlike most that came out of this country in
the sixties. Prices for these Eagle E-Types start at £ 300,000, plus the donor
car, plus options. Each takes around 4000 hours to make.
And then there's this. The Low Drag GT. Now, we're talking
truly Leno-esque levels of automotive indulgence. So far, just one exists; it's
just been completed, and I've driven it. 'Just a few' will be made - probably
no more than six - and you'll need at least £ 700,000 to buy one.
Eagle sits at the nexus of two trends in the classic car
world. First, the reappraisal of the E-type, which even Enzo famously described
as the most beautiful he'd ever seen, and which many drivers and racers
preferred to period Ferraris, yet which have always traded for a fraction of
the value of their Ferrari rivals. Greater supply alone doesn't explain their
cheapness, and it's now being corrected.
The second trend is the whole classic-reimagined,
better-than-it-ever-was movement typified by Singer Porsches, and the rest.
Each takes a genuinely iconic classic and irreverently improves it, either
starting with an original shell or an entirely new chassis, and freely using
whatever it takes to make a car that drives as well as it looks.
Eagle's Low Drag GT uses a donor car, still carries its VIN
plate, and reuses as many of its components as possible without compromising the
end result, which at this price needs to be perfection. The bodywork is
hand-formed from aluminium and features lower sills (with a lower seating
position) and a wider track, which sort out the only two criticisms you ever
hear of aerodynamicist Malcolm Sayer's original shape.
The upper body is a direct recreation of his original,
one-off Low Drag Coupe, which he built in advance of the E-Type's launch as a
prototype race version, but which regulation changes and Sir William Lyons'
loss of interest in racing meant was never pursued. That one car - CUT7 - still
races, and really does rival those Ferraris for value.
Into this body goes everything Eagle has developed for the
E-type: its bored-out 4.7-litre development of the XK straight-six, here using
fuel injection like the later Lightweight E-type racers, and with an aluminium
engine block (made by the neighbours) to cut mass. There's a five-speed gearbox
(again like the Lightweights, but here with an ally casing) and the E's Power
Lock diff, again in a new ally housing.
The brakes are four-pot AP Racing items, 315 mm at the front.
There are eye-wateringly expensive Ohlins adjustable shocks and lightweight
magnesium wheels. With a mass of just 1038 kgs and around 345 bhp and 360 lb-ft
from that engine, the Low Drag has an age-appropriate amount of power, but a
better power-to-weight ratio than a modern Jaguar F-Type V8 S.
Much of the engineering has been carried over from the Eagle
Speedster, a run of six roofless Es which all sold, despite a £ 600,000 pricetag.
In making the Speedster, Eagle's Technical Director Paul Brace was brave to
attempt to improve on the looks of a car in the design collection of New York's
Museum of Modern Art. But armed only with hammer and power tools, he managed
it.
Using the original E-type's architecture, subtly integrating
the new switches and dials, and trimmed in blue leather, I think it's the most
beautiful cockpit I've ever sat in, and is a crushing reminder that I'm just
not rich enough. If you are, you can of course have the cabin, and the entire
car, anyway you like. One customer wanted the Jaguar 'growler' at the center of
his Speedster's hornpush to look a bit growlier, and Eagle was happy to oblige.
Yes and no: it certainly drives like the two Speedsters -
one-third of total production! - I have been lucky enough to drive too. With
that power-to-weight ratio, Eagle's claimed sub-5-second 0-60 time feels
modest, the Low Drag generating chest-tightening thrust when you sink the
throttle, accompanied by a deeper, louder, richer remix of the XK's hallmark
trombone exhaust note.
The 'box changes with a similar weight and throw to the later
E-Type’s synchromesh four-speeders but is quicker and sweeter, though the
emphasis on torque means you can often dispatch slower-moving moderns without
changing down. The ride isn't as fluid as a standard E's but you trade it for a
greater connectedness with the road through backside and fingertips, and you
can have it set up any way you want.
There's more grip, yet not too much. With 225-section front
tyres and 235s at the back it's not over-tyred like a modern of the same power,
and retains the drifty throttle-adjustability that ought to mark a sixties
sports car.
Like a Lamborghini Miura, the joy of driving it comes as much
from the knowledge that you're piloting that extraordinary shape through the
scenery; you feel like you're performing a public service. You're more inclined
to stretch the Speedster knowing that you have functioning brakes when you need
to restrain it. Instead, the main brake on your progress along these wet,
narrow Sussex lanes is that 7000 man-hour figure, and the fact that this is the
only one, and it's got an owner waiting. And you wouldn’t want to be remembered
as the man who fell through the Mona Lisa.
