FROM THE EDITOR
When Jaguar got it right
EVAN KLEIN
James Elliott, Editor in chief
ONE OF MY
earliest and happiest memories of doing this job relates to a Jaguar D-type. I was barely out of my 20s and working for a different magazine
(Octane
didn’t exist then) when collector Peter Neumark invited me to try his recently purchased example. It was the ex-Jumbo Goddard car, which had been turned into a sort of prototype XKSS by its gung-ho owner. Underneath some interesting roadable modifications, however, lay chassis XKC 402, aka OKV 1, aka the second example that Jaguar produced and one of the three original 1954 Le Mans team cars. In fact, with Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton at the wheel, it was the highest Coventry finisher that year, coming second only to the Pampas Bull and Maurice Trintignant in their Ferrari 375 Plus.