Following the success of the of the Jaguar E-Type lightweights back in 2014, Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicles Operations, the same performance division that also gave us beauties like the Jaguar F-Type Project 7 and the Range Rover Sport SVR, has now set its sights on another iconic Jaguar: the XKSS.
For those who are too young to remember, the Jaguar XKSS was the road-going version of the D-Type race car. The British automaker really had no plans to build the model and the decision to do so only came about as a last-ditch attempt to recoup the investments made to the D-Type after the automaker withdrew the car from racing competitions. That decision eventually led Jaguar, under the directive of co-founder Sir William Lyons, to convert the remaining unsold D-Types sitting in the company’s Browns Lane factory into road-going cars. In truth, "conversion" might seem like an overstatement because Jaguar really didn’t do much in the process. It merely added a passenger side door and removed the divider between the two front seats. It also removed the large fin behind the river’s seats. Side screens were also added on both sides of the car and a standard-issue, foldable fabric roof was thrown in for good measure. Despite the changes, the XKSS was essentially the D-Type in road-going clothing. Jaguar ended up building 25 units of the XKSS, but was only able to sell 16 of those models. The other nine were all destroyed in a fire at the Browns Lane plant back in 1957, never to be seen again.
That story leads us to today, where the story of the burned down XKSS models comes full circle. Jaguar’s announcement that the nine XKSS models that were burned down 59 years ago will be rebuilt for a select group of customers and collectors. Each of the nine XKSS units that will be rebuilt is expected to cost at least $1.5 million with deliveries scheduled to begin in early 2017.
Continue after the jump to read the full story.
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