The E-Type is arguably one of the most beautiful cars ever made, however this version, the Series III V12, was not perhaps the best looking of them! First introduced in 1961, the earlier Series I and Series II E-Types had Jaguars superb straight six engine (that was first seen in the XK120 of 1948) in both 3.8 and 4.2 litre forms. By 1971 the E-Type was getting a little long in the tooth and Jaguar launched the Series III which was considerably updated from the earlier versions. For starters it had Jaguars new 5.4 litre V12 engine which produced 272bhp giving the updated E-Type plenty of performance despite it's increased weight compared with the smaller engined six cylinder cars.
The new engine was heavy on fuel, and expensive to service, which didn't help sales of the SIII E-Type in the early 1970s, following the fuel crises of 1973 that saw the price of fuel rocket. In order to meet new US regulations the car also had to have larger headlights compared to the original cars (although this also affected the later Series II E-Types as well) which meant the lights did not fit flush into the original openings in the bodywork. This gave them a somewhat protruberant look with a fussy chrome ring behind them to fill the gap between the rear of the lights and the original bodywork. New larger rear lights were also added to meet new regulations and the original E-Types beautiful oval opening in the nose was filled in with an ugly (in my opinion!) chromed grill that gave the front end a "heavy" look.
In total around 8000 Series III E-Type Roadsters were built between 1971 and 1975 when the E-Type was replaced by the Jaguar XJ-S. The final 50 cars (49 of which were roadsters) were special final editions all in black with a commemorative plaque on the dashboard marking them out as the final 50 E-Types made.
AUTOart make this model of the Series III Jaguar E-Type and it is a high quality model. Engine and interior detail are very good indeed and the bodywork of the E-Type (or XKE as it was often known in the USA) is very accurately replicated. In addition to silver, AUTOart to date (Oct 2005) have released this model in red and green, and they have announced further versions of the E-Type including both coupes and roadsters in both the earlier Series I and II types. This particular model was introduced in 2003, so it is two years old now which makes me wonder why AUTOart have not released further versions to date! Hopefully they will eventually appear, and when they do I'd be very keen to add them to my collection to join this one!
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