E-Type (Series 1)

From D-Type to Production Car Work began under technical director William Heynes in December 1956, three years before there was a car to show. E1A was completed in May 1957: shorter than the production car at fourteen feet two inches, built around a central monocoque tub in the D-Type manner but with a new independent rear end. E2A followed with a 2,997 cc racing XK six and went to Briggs Cunningham for Le Mans in 1960, where it failed to finish. Malcolm Sayer, an aerodynamicist who joined Jaguar in 1950, shaped the open car; Lyons and Bob Blake settled the coupe's roof. Bob Knight's rear suspension - lower wishbones, twin coil-spring damper units each side, the assembly in a detachable cage - is the piece of engineering that dates least.

Geneva, March 1961, and the 150 mph Question The car was announced at Geneva on 14 March 1961, export first, the British market following in July. Two press cars did the work: 9600 HP, the seventh prototype and a fixed-head coupe, driven to Geneva overnight by Bob Berry; and 77 RW, the roadster Norman Dewis was called from MIRA to bring through the night once demonstration rides were needed. The Motor timed 77 RW at 149.1 mph with 0-60 mph in 7.1 seconds; Autocar took 9600 HP to Belgium and published 150.4 mph mean, 151.7 mph best and 0-60 in 6.9 seconds on 24 March 1961. Those figures made the car's reputation and are not straightforwardly reproducible. Dewis's own testing had recorded 143 mph on the M1 and 142 mph at MIRA in January 1961; when 9600 HP was later stripped its cylinder head proved gas-flowed and matched to the manifolds; and Maurice Smith, who ran the Autocar test, is reported to have said he never saw more than 137 mph from his own 3.8.

Flat Floors, Outside Latches and the Early-Car Hierarchy The features that now set the price of an early E-Type were, at the time, faults being corrected. The first cars had unrecessed footwells - the flat floors - and were desperately short of legroom; Jaguar pressed depressions into the floors either side of the transmission tunnel. They also had bonnet latches outside the body and louvres welded in as a discrete panel rather than pressed into the skin. Sources do not agree on the dating. Wikipedia treats them as one event and says the first 500 cars had flat floors and external latches; Classic & Sports Car separates them, putting internal locking in October 1961 and lowered floors in February 1962. That matters commercially: the trade sells flat floors, outside bonnet locks and welded louvres as three distinct premiums.

The 4.2 and the 2+2 In October 1964 the 3.8 gave way to a 4,235 cc engine, the block lengthened to take bores five millimetres larger. Peak power was unchanged at a claimed 265 bhp, now at 5,400 rpm, but torque rose from 240 to 283 lb-ft. More consequential were the ancillaries: the Moss gearbox, with no synchromesh on first, gave way to Jaguar's own all-synchromesh four-speed; an alternator replaced the dynamo; the brake servo and seats improved. Autocar recorded 153 mph from a 4.2 coupe in 1965. In March 1966 came the first change to Sayer's shape: the 2+2, wheelbase stretched from eight feet to eight feet nine inches, doors eight and a half inches longer, the roof raised towards the back. Motor Sport tested one that April and called it, accurately, a two-seater with room for one or two more rather than a four-seater.

Series 1.5: Federal Regulation Arrives For the 1968 model year Jaguar spent a reported £250,000 adapting the car to American rules. The glazed headlamp fairings went, the lamps moving forward two and a half inches; toggle switches became black rockers; and US cars took twin Zenith-Stromberg carburettors in place of the triple SUs, claimed output falling to 246 hp. Jaguar issued no new designation and went on calling these Series 1. 'Series 1.5' is an enthusiast coinage applied afterwards, and the register community has never settled on where it begins.

Corrosion is the defining fault and the expensive one. Restoration is complicated further because the cars were hand-finished and no two shells are dimensionally identical, so replacement panels rarely drop into place, and bonnets are difficult to align and costly to replace. On the XK six, coolant staining and emulsified oil under the filler cap point to head gasket failure; a healthy engine should show around 40 to 45 psi at 3,000 rpm. Light rattling from the front indicates worn timing chains and tensioners. Weeps from the crankcase seals are normal rather than terminal, but the rear seal is an engine-out job. Classics World quoted specialist rebuilds at £10,000 to £15,000 in 2026, concours work above £18,000. The Moss gearbox on the 3.8 has no synchromesh on first and can need two hands to find reverse, though E-Type manual boxes are durable. Rear discs sit inboard, so changing them means dropping the whole rear suspension cage, quoted at £1,500 to £2,500 in 2026; front wishbone work runs £200 to £300 per side. Rusty subframes, worn hubs and universal joints, tired dampers and perished bushes are the usual rear-end complaints. Cockpit heat was a criticism when the cars were new, Motor Sport finding the handbrake and gear lever uncomfortably hot in 1966.

Structure decides the price, and on a monocoque with a bolted-on front subframe the structure is most of the car. The front bulkhead and the mountings for the engine frame rails are the critical area, followed by inner and outer sills, floor pans - especially vulnerable on roadsters - door bottoms, rear arches, boot floor, rear valance and the rear radius arm mountings. Bonnet seams behind the chrome trim and coupe tailgate seams hide corrosion well. A Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust certificate, £65 plus VAT, records the chassis, engine, body and gearbox numbers as built, the colour and trim, the build and despatch dates and the destination. The Trust is explicit that it does not inspect cars and that the certificate confirms nothing about identity, provenance, originality or condition: it establishes what left Browns Lane, not what is in front of you. Restamped components are a live issue on high-value early cars, one RM Sotheby's catalogue describing a flat-floor roadster carrying a new block and head restamped with factory-correct numbers. On early cars, flat floors, external latches and welded rather than pressed louvres are worth verifying individually against the chassis number; the three did not all change at the same moment, and the trade prices each one.

All figures below are as of August 2026. classic.com records an average sale of $151,127 across Jaguar E-Type Series 1 cars, with 58 of them listed. Its benchmarks separate sharply by body: the Series 1 Roadster benchmark stands at $121,761 and the Series 1 Coupe at $81,568, the coupe marked as trending downward with an average sale of $81,874 across a range from $9,000 for a 1963 project in August 2024 to $179,995 for a 1964 car in July 2026. 'Flat Floor (1961-1962)' is tracked as its own category with six cars listed. Auction evidence follows the same hierarchy. RM Sotheby's sold chassis 875157, a flat-floor 3.8 roadster with outside bonnet latches and hand-welded louvres, for $324,000 at Monterey in August 2025. The same house offered chassis 875256, a comparable flat-floor car restored at a documented £182,719.76 but fitted with a replacement block and head restamped to factory-correct numbers, at Monaco in 2024 against an estimate of €160,000-€190,000; it did not sell. Collecting Cars' price guide, consulted in August 2026, records £150,000 for a flat-floor outside-bonnet-lock roadster described as the thirty-eighth of the first fifty and £297,200 for a flat-floor 3.8 coupe said to be the fifth built.