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Question. What do Jaguar’s ex-works long-nose D-type, XKD 605, and the XFR have in common? Answer. At first glance, not a lot – although, surprisingly, they do share one characteristic in that they are both hugely tractable at low-speed. The reason I know this is that having been fortunate enough to sample the new XFR (and XKR) on road and track, I was then extremely fortunate to be offered the chance for a quick drive in the JDHT’s long-nose D-type. Quick in the sense of it being brief, not going fast you understand. In fact, it was the not going fast part of the brief drive that revealed just how tractable the 53-year-old racer is. As you can imagine, when jumping into an historic Jaguar that’s worth several million pounds for the very first time, even in a deserted car park as was the case here, trying to drive it quickly is right at the bottom of the ‘bright ideas’ scale. Especially when you are editor of a Jaguar magazine. So I have no problem in admitting that, after stalling it once (the racing clutch having about 1in of travel), I tootled off, changed into second, and left it there for the duration of the drive. And that was just fine by the D-type.