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Jaguar D-Type | |
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Overview | |
Manufacturer | Jaguar Cars |
Production | 1954–1957 |
Body and chassis | |
Class | Sports racing car |
Body style | Roadster |
Layout | Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive |
Related | Jaguar XKSS |
Powertrain | |
Engine | 3,442 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 | |
Predecessor | Jaguar C-Type |
Successor | Jaguar 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]