Some of the world’s rarest and most historically significant Jaguar cars are to be offered for sale on the open market for the first time ever by Pendine Historic Cars, based at Bicester Heritage in the UK.
The ‘Jaguar Sports Car Collection’ currently belongs to one of the world’s foremost collectors of sporting Jaguars and contains 12 beautifully presented Jaguars, with a number of them probably representing some of the most collectible and valuable Jaguars in existence. Among the collection is the first ever Jaguar sports car prototype, the first ever E-Type to be seen in public and the famous ‘lost C-Type’.
“This is without a doubt one of the most impressive and important collections of Jaguars in the world,” comments James Mitchell, founder, Pendine Historic Cars. “Each car in the collection represents a key milestone through the marque’s early history. Not only have some of these incredible cars played important roles in automotive cultural history, but theyare also among the best examples in the world.”
The ‘Jaguar Sports Car Collection’ is the automotive life work of notable collector, Dr Christian Jenny. Since falling in love with the marque in the early 1970s, Christian has been dedicated to building a collection of Jaguar sports cars that spans the most definitive period of the company’s development. So significant is the collection, a hardback book titled ‘The Jaguar Sports Car Collection; A Personal Endeavour’, which tells the story of each individual car, was published in 2014.
Arguably, the most significant of the lot is the 1935 Jaguar SS 90 Prototype. This is the first ever Jaguar sports car made and the car that would launch Sir William Lyons’ and Jaguar’s successful motor sport campaign at the very beginning of the marque’s sporting history. It was entirely handcrafted as a one-off on a shortened SS chassis and presented to the public before being campaigned in both the 1935 RAC rally and later claiming a third-in-class finish at the Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb.
The prototype is joined by no less than three other SS sports cars. Almost as significant as the Prototype is the famous 1935 SS90 “Captain Jack” which was the first production sports car ever sold by Lyons. Add to this beautiful examples of a 1937 SS100 2.5-litre and the big brother 1938 SS100 3.5-litre.
Among post-war Jaguars, the one in the collection likely to cause most interest is probably the 1961 Jaguar E-Type fhc – the first E-Type ever seen in public when it was unveiled to the press and VIP guests just prior to the Geneva Motor Show. As one of the very first hand built, pre-production prototype examples of the model which changed Jaguar’s history forever, this is considered one of the most important non-competition Jaguars in the world.
A hugely significant historic race car in the collection is the 1952 Jaguar C-Type, known as the ‘lost C-Type’ after it became the only one of the 53 examples unaccounted for between the late sixties until 1997. Today it is regarded as one of the greatest ever sports racing cars of the 1950s.
Also in the collection is a 1949 XK120 Roadster Alloy, 1950 XK120 Roadster, 1955 XK140 SE Roadster, 1960 XK150 3.8S Roadster, 1961 E-Type Roadster and a 1972 V12 Roadster.
To see the full ‘Jaguar Sports Car Collection’ for sale on the Pendine Historic Cars website, visit the Pendine website.
