The best Jaguar XK-engined cars

Jaguar XK120

You couldn’t have a list dedicated to the XK engine without the XK120. This is the car that debuted the engine, in 1949. The newly-renamed marque’s first post-war sportscar set a precedent as a performance and racing innovator and envelope-pusher. For yes, that name comes from its 120mph top speed, as facilitated by its big-chested 3.4-litre twin-cam, 165PS (121kW) engine. Starting life as Jaguar’s limited-run, tentative first step back into sportscar production, the XK120 became a racer and a runaway success, with a final production run of over 12,000 cars. Not bad given just 200 were initially planned.

Jaguar C-Type

Of course, it didn’t take long for the road-going XK120 to morph into a racing car. Officially called the XK120-C (C for competition) it’s what we’ve all known and loved for the longest time as the C-type. Though it really is its own thing, given it has its own lightweight tubular chassis and smoothed-over bodywork. The C-type’s biggest claim to fame is its later introduction of the revolutionary disc brake, necessitated by the increasing speeds the 225PS (165kW) triple-weber version of the XK engine facilitated.

When it won Le Mans for the second time in 1953 (with Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt sharing the drive), it was the first to do so at an average speed of over 100mph. In total, it totted up two Le Mans wins, while the first ever win for a disc braked car was at Reims in 1952, with Stirling Moss at the wheel.

HWM-Jaguar

The first of the so-called ‘Jaguar-engined specials’ was the HWM-Jaguar, a Hersham and Walton Motors sportscar that had an XK120 engine shoehorned in by its owner Oscar Moore and needless to say, the floodgates opened. A number of Jaguar-engined HWM sports racers found great success against factory teams in the early and mid-1950s. What was a relatively small manufacturer is now a regular at any race meeting its cars are relevant to.

Jaguar D-type

In what we’re sure is not quite chronological order, we move on to Jaguar’s sportscar successor to the C-type. These were big shoes to fill for the D-type in 1954 and typical of Jaguar, it was an engineering marvel for the time. With an all-new monocoque construction and a slippery body shaped for top speed down the Mulsanne, Jaguar had no intention of relinquishing its stranglehold on Le Mans. With its comparatively diminutive straight-six, the Ds breezed down the famous straight at La Sarthe topping 172.8mph, playing the 4.9-litre Ferrari’s 160mph top end.

If not for reliability issues, the D would have won first time out. It did secure a win at Reims, before its three-year run of domination at La Satthe began, from 1955 to 1957, with privateers Ecurie Ecosse bringing it home in ‘56 and ‘57. Though Jaguar itself had withdrawn from racing in 1956, 1957 saw the 3.8-litre D-type absolutely dominate, occupying five of the top six places at Le Mans that year.

Cooper-Jaguar T38  – independent rear suspension

Cooper was next to try out the Jaguar straight-six in its sportscars, with Peter Whitehead convincing the team to go into the endurance game, with the 3.4-litre XK-powered T33 1954. Though not a runaway success to begin with, Cooper’s refined T38 sportscar with its advanced independent rear suspension and enlarged 3.8-litre XK, did over the course of six years rack up some nine wins and some 23 podium finishes.

What will become apparent is that these Jaguar-powered spinoffs were often slow burns, letting their makers down initially, only to prove strong steeds with development. The Cooper-Jaguar was especially effective here in Britain, scoring multiple victories at both Silverstone and yes, here at Goodwood.

Lister-Jaguar

The XK engine’s strength and dependability in very little doubt, Lister and Tojeiro were also in on the fun of the XK-powered party. It’s perhaps Lister that is most-famed for its Jaguar-powered association, and indeed after the racing years of the Lister-Jaguar the company went on to tune and race Jaguars and Jaguar-powered cars, even fielding its own V12 supercar at Le Mans in the 1990s. But it all started in 1954, when Brian Lister came up with Cooper-inspired tubular chassis and went racing with it.

After trialling MG and Bristol engines for the first couple of years, Lister began using the 3.4-litre Jaguar D-Type engine in a redesigned car with mixed success. It’s these ‘Knobbly’ cars that are best-known – named for their strange curvaceous bodywork – with Lister producing recreations to this day.

Tojeiro-Jaguar

One of the most innovative names to use the XK engine was of course Tojeiro, who employed the later 3.0-litre version of the XK straight-six engine in his sportscars racing with the Ecurie Ecosse outfit. Succeeding the D-Type, it was a more advanced car, with a De Dion rear end vastly more effective than the live rear axle of the dearly-departed D-Type. It was from a Tojeiro-Jaguar that Masten Gregory famously lept at Goodwood in 1959, when the car lost brakes on the way into Woodcote.

Lunging clear of the car was astonishingly, the right call, given Gregory would almost certainly have lost his life had he stayed with the car to crash. It’s this famous story the inspired the ‘Lucky Leap’ beer now available at Goodwood, with an image of Gregory and the Tojeiro on each bottle. Again, though not exactly a race-winning titan in period, the Tojeiros have found pace with historic racers like James Cottingham.

Jaguar E-Type Lightweight

Jaguar’s official successor to the D-Type, was the E-Type Lightweight. While more a grand touring sportscar than an outright prototype, a dozen of these specially-bodied, lithe specials were made, powered by larger 3.8-litre competition-spec XK straight-six. Though not a tier-1 race win contender, the 12 cars that were built did see plenty of success with private owners all over the world. It is of course a staple of our Goodwood Revival RAC TT Celebration grids every year, too.

Jaguar Mk2 3.8

There’s been quite a bit of talk about racing, has there not? But the XK had as much presence on the road, powering all sorts of Jaguars from its introduction in 1949, all the way through to the final XK-powered Jaguar in 1992. In truth, the XK’s excellence waned in comparison to more exotic, more powerful, more efficient, and modernised rivals as the decades wore on. As above, its heyday was probably the 1950s and 1960s. And if you thought we’d select the E-Type as the definitive XK-engined Jaguar road car, think again. I’d sooner have a Mk II Jag – Grace… Space… Pace. 

Here was a stately yet slippery and stylish saloon with the heart of a Le Mans racer and truly breathtaking performance for the time. It had sophisticated supporting parts to back up the punch, too, with Jaguar’s own innovative disc brakes, independent front suspension with double wishbones, coil springs and telescopic dampers and, in the 3.8, a limited-slip diff at the back. The world’s first super saloon? It could well be. It was certainly a favourite of bank-robbing crims in need of a blisteringly fast yet practical getaway car…

Goodwood photography by Jordan Butters, Raife Smith, Nick Dungan, Dean Grossmith, Lou Johnson and Jayson Fong