Eight Jaguar C-Type Continuation cars will be built by Jaguar Classic to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the legendary original, designed by Malcolm Sayer and made between 1951 and 1953.
The Jaguar C-type will be the firm’s fourth Classic Continuation car following previous programmes for Lightweight E-Type, XKSS and D-Type. This announcement comes just a fortnight after Ecurie Ecosse revealed its own seven-strong run of continuation C-Types.
By using 1950s drawings and company records, as well as scan data from an original C-Type, Jaguar Classic says it will create the most authentic new C-Types possible. The cars will be hand-built at its Works facility in Coventry to 1953 Le Mans-winning specification, so buyers will get a 3.4-litre straight-six engine with Weber 40DCO3 carburettors that’s good for 220bhp, plus the disc brakes that the C-Type famously pioneered in motorsport.
The programme will represent the first time that a C-Type in its ultimate 1953 disc-braked ‘Works’ guise can be purchased direct from Jaguar. In period, 53 C-Types left the factory with 43 sold to private owners, but the production specification was limited to drum-braked cars with twin SU carburettors, in the style of the 1951 Works cars. In another first, there’s also an online configurator that will show, among other things, the 12 exterior and eight interior colours available.
The news comes just over a month after Jaguar Land Rover won a landmark copyright infringement case, giving the British brand copyright protection over the C-Type’s eternal shape. The Intellectual Property Division of the High Court in Sweden ruled in JLR’s favour in a case it brought against a company manufacturing C-Type replicas. In what looks to be an important case in the evolving copyright law landscape, the court ordered the defendants to stop manufacturing C-Type copies and awarded Jaguar Land Rover all its legal costs.
Amanda Beaton, Global IP Counsel for Jaguar Land Rover, said: “We welcome the decision by the Swedish High Court, that the shape of a vehicle as original as the Jaguar C-Type is protected by copyright, in a similar way to other works such as statues, paintings or music.”
It’s not the first time JLR has been to court over one of its products. In 2019 it won a case in Beijing against a Chinese firm that was selling a copy of its Evoque model for a fraction of the price, but last August it failed in a bid to register the shapes of versions of the Land Rover Defender as trademarks.
