Jaguar D-Type

Jaguar D-Type
Jaguar D-Type at Retromobile 2013
Overview
ManufacturerJaguar Cars
Production1954–1957
Body and chassis
ClassSports racing car
Body styleRoadster
LayoutFront-engine, rear-wheel-drive
RelatedJaguar XKSS
Powertrain
Engine3,442 cm3 (210.04 cu in) XK6 I6 (1954)
3,781 cm3 (230.73 cu in) XK6 I6 (1957)
2,997 cm3 (182.89 cu in) XK6 I6 (1958)
Chronology
PredecessorJaguar C-Type
SuccessorJaguar E-Type

The Jaguar D-Type is a sports racing car that was produced by Jaguar Cars Ltd. between 1954 and 1957. Designed specifically to win the Le Mans 24-hour race, it shared the straight-6 XK engine and many mechanical components with its C-Type predecessor. Its structure, however, was radically different, with innovative monocoque construction and slippery aerodynamics that integrated aviation technology, including in some examples a distinctive vertical stabilizer.

Engine displacement began at 3.4 litres, was enlarged to 3.8 L in 1957, and reduced to 3.0 L in 1958 when Le Mans rules limited engines for sports racing cars to that maximum. D-Types won Le Mans in 1955, 1956 and 1957. After Jaguar temporarily retired from racing as a factory team, the company offered the remaining unfinished D-Types as street-legal XKSS versions, whose perfunctory road-going equipment made them eligible for production sports car races in America. In 1957 25 of these cars were in various stages of completion when a factory fire destroyed nine of them.

Total production is thought by some to have totaled 71 D-Types, including 18 for factory teams and 53 for privateers[citation needed] (plus an additional 16 D-Types were converted into road-legal XKSS versions). Jaguar is quoted as claiming it built 75 D-Types.[1][2][3]