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1960 Jaguar 'E2A' To Star In Bonhams & Butterfields' Quail
Lodge Sale
The legendary sports-racing prototype that shaped Jaguar's future
Bids in excess of $7-million expected
The unique and celebrated prototype Jaguar 'E2A' as driven by no fewer than
four of the world's greatest racing drivers is to be offered for the first time
at auction, headlining Bonhams & Butterfields' annual Quail Lodge sale, in California,
on 15 August 2008. It is expected to fetch in excess of $7-million.
Presented in wonderfully original and unspoiled ex-works condition, this unique
and immensely important British sports-racing legend has been lovingly preserved
in just one family ownership for over 40 years and – extraordinarily - it is in
effect a one-owner car ex-works.
By 1960 Jaguar had won the world's most prestigious
motor race, the Le Mans 24-Hours, no fewer than five times; twice with its original
competition-tailored C-Type and three times with the tail-finned D-Type.
Jaguar
had withdrawn from fully-focused works team competition after 1956, but had continued
to maintain a racing presence through such customer teams as Briggs Cunningham's
in America, and Ecurie Ecosse in the UK.
Now company head Sir William Lyons
had decreed that it was time for the marque's phenomenal sporting pedigree to
benefit production with an all-new semi-monocoque chassised design which was to
emerge in 1961 as the Jaguar E-Type. One prototype for this model – the 'missing
link' between D-Type and E-Type – emerged as 'E2A', a powerful fuel-injected 3-litre
sports-racing two seater which was to be raced by famous American sportsman Briggs
Cunningham's experienced team at Le Mans in 1960.
The new 'E2A' was to test
several features of the forthcoming E-Type production model, not least its independent
rear suspension system in place of the live-axle featured in both the C-Type and
D-Type designs. Visually the new car's tail-finned rear bodywork recalled the
charismatic D-Type, while its handsomely proportioned one-piece forward bodywork
presaged the lovely lines of the forthcoming E-Type.
The Jaguar experimental
department at Brown's Lane, Coventry, completed the car in February 1960, powered
by an aluminium-block fuel-injected 3-litre 6-cylinder engine. It was subsequently
finished for the Cunningham team in their famous American racing colours, white
overall with two parallel centreline stripes in dark blue.
In the 1960 Le Mans
24-Hours, that June, Cunningham entrusted this unique beauty to the incredibly
strong driver pairing of the contemporary BRM Formula 1 team's ex-Ferrari star
Dan Gurney and veteran multiple SCCA Champion Walt Hansgen. They ran the car successfully
well into the night-section of the long race, but fuel injection pipe failures
created a weak mixture which caused burned pistons and a blown cylinder head gasket.
The car was forced into retirement after completing 89 laps of the historic Sarthe
circuit. In the April Test weekend at Le Mans, Walt Hansgen had set 2nd fastest
lap time overall in 'E2A' – averaging some 125mph and splitting the Ferrari factory
team's latest model 3-litre V12-engined 250 Testa Rossa Indipendente sports-racing
cars. Indeed, one of E2A's great strengths was its straight-line speed. Aerodynamicist
Malcolm Sayer was quoted as saying E2A was geared to achieve 200 mph at 7,000
rpm and later told Roger Woodley that she managed 6,800 rpm on the Mulsanne Straight
– an incredible 194.29mph.
Then loaned to the Cunningham team for the rest of
the season, and in fact labelled the 'Cunningham E-Type', 'E2A' was taken to the
US where Briggs Cunningham's engineering director Alfred Momo was free to fit
a full 3.8-litre XK 6-cylinder engine – with triple Weber twin-choke carburettors,
developing a recorded 294bhp at 5,500rpm – for SCCA racing.
The team then presented
the car for its American racing debut on August 27, 1960, at Bridgehampton, Long
Island, NY, where it was to be driven by Walt Hansgen. In his hands, 'E2A' promptly
led throughout and won handsomely, beating not only a Lister-Jaguar but also a
lightweight, disc-braked 'Birdcage' Maserati into 2nd and 3rd places.
Two weeks
later, the car was then driven by Hansgen in the important Road America 500-Miles
race at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, finishing comfortably in 3rd place overall and
demonstrating not only his own skill in late-race wet weather driving but also
the new all-independently-suspended Jaguar's capabilities in such conditions.
October 1960 then saw the Cunningham Team enter the car for America's biggest
professional road race, the 'Los Angeles Times' Grand Prix at Riverside, California.
There it was entrusted to Formula 1's new double-World Champion Driver, the Cooper
team leader, Jack Brabham. Running against much lighter-weight free-Formula sports
car competition, the great Australian star finished 10th.
Finally, for the
Pacific Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, California, second of the great Fall Series
of American West Coast professional road races, 'E2A' was run for Jack Brabham's
Formula 1 Cooper team-mate Bruce McLaren, before being sidelined by pre-race problems.
This important prototype car then returned to the factory where its distinctive
tail fin was removed and the car repainted green to act as a press 'decoy' during
testing of Jaguar's rear-engined XJ-13 V12 sports-prototype. It was also used
by the Dunlop company to test their frontier-technology Maxaret anti-lock braking
system, and a legacy of this – a firing button for their onboard chalk-marker
measurement device – has survived on the dash panel.
Ultimately, in the late
1960s, Jaguar engineer Roger Woodley was successful in negotiating purchase of
'E2A' for his father-in-law, the prominent collector and racing photographer Guy
Griffiths. It has remained in the family ever since – having been exhibited for
many years in their Cotswold Museum at Chipping Campden - and Guy's equally enthusiastic
daughter, Penny Griffiths-Woodley (now Penny Graham) has kept it in highly original
condition, running it on such special occasions as the Goodwood Festival of Speed,
the 1996 Jaguar cavalcade from Browns Lane to Le Mans, and in the Jaguar E-Type
40th anniversary tribute at the Goodwood Revival Meeting.
While 'E2A' as offered
by Bonhams & Butterfields is fitted currently with a 3.8-litre XK competition
engine, an original competition 3-litre power unit is offered with the car.
Describing 'E2A' in his definitive book 'Jaguar – Sports Racing & Works Competition
Cars from 1954' the revered marque historian Andrew Whyte declared: "As one-off
engineering exercises of the kind at which Jaguar excelled, 'E2A' is a classic.
The build quality achieved by Bob Blake and his colleagues was exceptional - indeed
throughout the factory in the '50s and '60s, there were special skills ready and
willing to do special one-off jobs of that kind."
James Knight, International Head of Bonhams' motoring department said: "Jaguar
'E2A' is absolutely one of the most charismatic and significant prototypes ever
produced by the mainstream motor industry, at any time, anywhere. As the taproot
of the magnificent E-Type Jaguar series, 'E2A' would be enormously significant
for that alone. But when you consider its Le Mans 24-Hours racing history, its
association with four such all-time great racing drivers as Sir Jack Brabham,
Bruce McLaren, Dan Gurney and Walt Hansgen – not to mention its win at Bridgehampton
and strong third place at Road America – it offers pretty much all the finest
attributes any connoisseur could ever seek in a road-useable sports-racing classic;
all this, and good looks too."
Further information and images Rebecca Ruff +44 (0) 207 468 8210 or email press@bonhams.com
NOTES FOR EDITORS
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's oldest and
largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by
the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK.
In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers
on the West Coast of America and in August 2003, Goodmans, a leading Australian
fine art and antiques auctioneer with salerooms in Sydney, joined the Bonhams
Group of Companies. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through
two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further
seven throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New
York and Boston in the USA; and Switzerland, France, Monaco, Australia, Toronto,
Hong Kong and Dubai. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives
in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 57 specialist
areas.
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