Blog posts of '2023' 'October'

The XJ13 was, for its time, quite an advanced piece of design. In 1964 Jaguar began to lay down the foundations of their prototype - at this stage, their sights were set on the 1965 24 hours of Le Mans and initial progress was rapid.

Looking back at building up the chassis/monocoque of my recreation of the 1966 Jaguar XJ13 - a "snapshot" of the car as it was in 1966 before it was crashed and modified. Almost 18 months of painstaking and exhaustive research revealed details of the original 1966 car which allowed me to recreate the car as Malcolm Sayer intended - without the later "1970's" modifications/enhancements.

The 1966 Jaguar XJ13 is no more. Its spirit and identity live on in a Jaguar-built replica constructed from the mortal remains of the original car which suffered a calamitous crash during a demo run in 1971.

On the 3rd June 1965 an internal "Instruction to Proceed (XJ13 Car)" was issued by Jaguar’s Bob Knight – it started, “Build one prototype competiton car …”. Responsibilities for all aspects of the car’s design were allocated – the responsibility for the body being given to Malcolm Sayer, Phil Weaver and Bob Blake.

During the rebuild by Abbey Panels in 1972/73, certain aspects of the car were altered and it lost its "pure" form as originally envisaged by Sayer. One of the more obvious "enhancements" was the addition of flared/widened wheelarches. The XJ13 log records this was done primarily for "cosmetic reasons". There are many differences between the car I wanted to recreate and the car as it stands today.