Jaguar to rebuild iconic XKSS sports car

Jaguar has confirmed it will bring its classic XKSS sports car back from the dead and nine of the 1950s classics will be rebuilt with a price tag starting at more than €1.5 million.

The XKSS was born out of some desperation. Jaguar won Le Mans three times in succession in the 1950s – 1955, '56 and '57 – with its legendary D-Type racing car. With the company withdrawing from racing in '57 though, it was left with a stock of expensive and high-tech D-Type chassis and parts, so it was decided to convert them into road cars.

So the XKSS was born. It was given a windscreen and a rudimentary folding roof, had a passenger door cut into the left-hand side and it lost the D-Type’s massive dorsal fin, which gave the racer such straight-line stability down Le Mans’ Mulsanne Straight.

It kept the D-Type’s engine though – a 250hp straight-six XK 3.4-litre unit. 250hp doesn’t seem like much today but this was the 1950s remember and 0-100km/h in five seconds was science fiction stuff.

The XKSS may have been a lash-up but it was a beautiful lash-up and sold to celebrities such as Steve McQueen. Sixteen were made and sold before a fire raged through Jaguar’s factory on Brown’s Lane, Coventry, in 1957, taking with it nine XKSSs that were in the process of being built.

It is those nine chassis numbers that Jaguar will use for these recreation cars, a system it used to great success last year when similarly unused chassis numbers for 1960s E-Type Lightweight sports racers gave birth to a short run of recreation models that also sold for €1.5 million apiece.

60th anniversary

Jaguar’s new Jaguar Classic division will take responsibility for hand-making each new XKSS, from the original plans and patterns, in a special facility in Warwick. The first cars will be ready in time for the 60th anniversary of the XKSS’s original production run next year.

Tim Hannig, director of Jaguar Land Rover Classic, said: "The XKSS occupies a unique place in Jaguar's history and is a car coveted by collectors the world over for its exclusivity and unmistakable design. Jaguar Classic's highly skilled team of engineers and technicians will draw on decades of knowledge to ensure each of the nine cars is completely authentic and crafted to the highest quality. Our continuation XKSS reaffirms our commitment to nurture the passion and enthusiasm for Jaguar's illustrious past by offering exceptional cars . . ."

The move is bound to cause some controversy, however. While the practice of recreating originals using leftover chassis numbers is far from uncommon (Aston Martin kicked off the practice in the ‘90s with its DB4 GT Zagato “continuation” models), such recreations can cause ructions in the tight-knit world of classic car ownership, not least because of the potential for a reduction in value of the originals.

There was more than a little aggro last year when no less an authority than Lord March said that he wouldn't allow recreation E-Type Lightweights to be raced at the Goodwood Revival event because "we don't allow replicas".

The arguments over whether a car made by the original company, using original parts and plans, is a replica or not will rage on. At least we can be sure of one thing – that the XKSS is still a beautiful car, whether built in 1957 or 2017.