Here?s apparent proof that somebody at Jaguar Land Rover is a massive Austin Powers fan. The fictional secret agent/playboy came out of cryogenic hibernation in the late 1990s after 30 years in stasis to discover that women had acquired rights and that free love had got expensive. But also that his Union flag?painted Jaguar E-type?a.k.a. the Shaguar?had remained unchanged.
Now Jaguar is trying a similar time-traveling trick with the E-type, announcing it will be the latest product of its factory-restored Reborn program, with 10 remanufactured Series 1 versions set to be sold by the company?s Jaguar Classic division. Let?s just hope that at least one buyer orders a roadster with the full Rule Britannia paint scheme. Oh, behave!
We?ve been here before, of course. First with the “continuation” Lightweight E-types that Jaguar made using a bunch of chassis plates that it had (pretty much literally) found sitting in a drawer at its Browns Lane factory. And then with Reborn versions of both the Land Rover Series 1 and, just recently, the first-generation Range Rover. The arrival of the E-type effectively confirms that this will be a continuing trend as the company moves through its back catalog, although we imagine it will stop some way short of bringing us factory-freshened versions of the X-type sedan or the first Land Rover Discovery. As with the Land Rover and the Range Rover Classic, the E-type will be a restoration rather than a re-creation, with appropriate do...