Jaguar just launched an incredible new classic car

Steve McQueen’s favourite car is reincarnated in strictly limited number. Don’t bother forming an orderly queue: all nine have been sold.

Le Mans-winning Jaguar D-type sold for $20m-plus at Pebble Beach last August, making it the most valuable British car ever, and elevating the British brand to the top echelons of a world whose monetary rhythms are closer to contemporary art than used cars.

The thirst for storied historic cars among high net worth individuals is so intense that it has also led to a lucrative new spin-off: old cars masquerading as brand new ones, or "continuation cars". Last year, Jaguar reincarnated the mid-1960s lightweight E-types whose six chassis numbers were allocated but never built. Now there’s this: the XKSS, possibly the most venerated classic Jaguar of all, effectively a road-going version of the D-type racer, Steve McQueen’s favourite car, and to many eyes the single most beautiful car ever made. And possibly one of the most beautiful objects full-stop.

The first of nine "new" XKSSs has just been revealed at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles, reigniting – if that’s the word – one of the most infamous chapters in Jaguar’s 89-year history. In 1957, nine cars originally destined for export to North America were destroyed when a fire raged through the hangar they were being stored in at Jaguar’s Browns Lane factory. Only 16 were ever made, and the fact that those nine were incinerated has given Jag the justification to finish what they started almost 60 years ago. It’s not without its controversies, the whole "continuation car" concept, but owners of the original cars can console themselves with the thought that they’re now even more valuable. The new car costs in excess of £1m; the real thing is worth more than ten times that.

Source: Jaguar Just Launched The Most Incredible New Classic Car