Premium car dealer Stratstone has bought one of the six Jaguar Lightweight E-types recreations and the firm’s enthusiastic CEO Trevor Finn has vowed to use the car to ensure as many people see it in action as possible.
It will not be locked away in a museum and will be used as Jaguar originally intended when it first created the 18-car ‘Special GT E-type’ race car programme back in 1963.
Only 12 of the 18 cars were built back in the 60s: 50 years on, the missing chassis numbers were rediscovered and a plan was hatched to build the missing six cars using period machinery and original Jaguar E-type craftsmen and engineers.
The Stratstone Lightweight E-Type is the only one that’s going to be based in Britain and Finn has promised to make sure this car – chassis number 15 – literally is the star.
“I want the car to be a celebrity in its own right,” Finn told us. “It’s going to have an ambassadorial role for us – I don’t want it to be all about who’s driving it, but about the car itself.”
Finn and his team plan to showcase the #15 Lightweight E-type at all the big automotive events, such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed, but will also take it to events outside the usual automotive calendar. It’s a car that reaches out beyond petrolheads, explained Finn, and so will be showcased there so many more people get to see it.
It may even be raced: all six Lightweight E-types have been built with full FIA historic racing homologation.
The Stratstone Lightweight E-type even has its own hub on Stratstone’s website, and social media activities are being planned for it.
“We wouldn’t have been able to do this a year ago,” said Finn, “but media continues to evolve so quickly, it’s now possible to give special cars like this an enormous reach across multiple channels.
“This is why we’re not keeping it locked away and unused: this car is going to become a celebrity and I’m determined as many people as possible will get to see it and to experience it.