Recreating a dream – building a copy of a D Type Jaguar

This is a story about a group of friends setting out to build an exact copy of a 1955 Production D type. The story started early in 2005 but right now, we don’t know the end of the story as the car is not finished! We want to share the progress with as many people as possible so that you can live the dream too by following our trials and tribulations and by contributing your thoughts.

The first thing to get straight is that our story is not about building a "look alike" car. We are setting out to build an exact copy of what the Jaguar factory produced in 1955. Our aim is to get an Historic Technical Passport (HTP) for the car when completed, as issued by the FIA.

So how will we know that the car will be correct in every detail?

For aficionados of all things Jaguar and D Types in particular, you know that there is a mine of information in all sorts of books, period publications etc. But you will also know that a D Type has virtually no standard Jaguar parts and so will be a complex and expensive project to re-create.

So, over the years we have collected some original parts, some remanufactured parts but most importantly we have acquired a comprehensive set of drawings of those parts unique to the D Type.

Rear subframe / drawing