1957 Jaguar XKSS
Jaguar announced the revival of their
classic XKSS, as they intend to build nine cars by hand in order to replace
those lost in the 1957 Browns Lane factory fire.
The Jaguar XKSS was the road-going
version of the Le Mans-winning D-Type, with the company back then making just
16 cars before disaster struck. Jaguar’s Classic department will use the
expertise gained by constructing the remaining E-Type Lightweights in to order
to build by hand the remaining nine XKSSs at the company’s new ‘Experimental
Workshop’ in Warwick, UK.
These nine continuation models are going
to be built in the same exact specifications of the cars produced in 1957, with
Jaguar certifying every aspect of the build. As expected, the price of these
extremely exclusive classics will be in excess of £1 million each.
After winning the Le Mans race for three
years in a row (1955-1956-1957), Jaguar decided to convert the remaining 25
D-Types into road-going models, creating for some people the world’s first
supercar.
The conversion from D-Type to XKSS
included the addition of a higher windscreen, an extra door in the passenger
side, taking away the divider between the driver and passenger and the removal
of the iconic fin behind the driver’s seat.
Jaguar says that the first deliveries of
the new continuation XKSS will commence in early 2017.
