Jaguar’s own Reforgings

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We all know the XKSS and its sad destination. In a nutshell: a plush version of the D-type for Grand Touring purposes of which 100 were planned, but just 16 materialized after a blazing fire at Brown’s Lane destroyed 9 XKSSs plus all the tooling to make them. If something similar would have happened to Zagato, they’d started knocking out ‘Sanction IIs’, ‘Sanction IIIs’ and ‘Sanction God Knows How Many’s’ since the early 1980s. It just took Jaguar a little longer. But they are there now, and they say they won’t make any more then 9. Okay, well, 10 as the first of these new XKSSs will be given number 0 and is said to be used for promotional purposes only. Right.

What are they? Jaguar doesn’t speak of Sanction II cars, Evocations, Tributes, Elaborations or Recreations but says their engineers are “Set out to build an elite 1950s automobile bolt for bolt, without a single original or restored part - reforging the XKSS in exacting detail, not merely replicating its look.” They do use modern day technology to build them, and incorporate 2016 safety features. Four original cars are said to have been 3D scanned leading to the new bodies made by hand out of ‘A 5,000 spec series material produced in a single sheet.’ We have no clue about that, but it’s not the magnesium alloy used for the original cars. Computer imagery was applied to determine what panel gaps should appear in the cars to maximize authenticity. The 9 customer cars have supposedly all yet been sold. To whom? That’s be the question.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy Car Magazine)

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