The race car that never raced - The Jaguar XJ13 #blogpost

The xj13 was meant to be built for the 24 hours of le mans in the mid 60’s. However It never raced, and only one was produced and here is why.

Development

Jaguar had pondered at the idea of manufacturing a DOHC V12 engine as far back as 1950, for only racing proposes and then after its success in racing they would turn it into a road going version of it, unlike all previous Jaguar race cars which was built a road car and then adapt it for racing later.
So the jaguar engineers set to work and essentially what they had was two inline 6 cylinders from the XK and the merged them together on a common crankshaft with an aluminium cylinder block, although there were differences in the inlet porting, valve angles and combustion chamber shape to create a mid-engine 502 hp 5.0 litre V12 engine that first ran in July 1964.

The idea was not put into action till 1965 five years after jaguar decided to do this but it only took the team 1 year to come up with a stunning looking prototype with the first car running by March 1966. The aluminium body was designed by Malcolm Sayer, the aerodynamicist responsible for the Jaguar C-type, D-type, E-type and XJS, and you can definitely tell, this was going to be an icon for jaguar, so why was only the prototype built and nothing else, ill get to that later.

Anyway so the car was ready and William Heynes the jaguar engineer recognised as early as 1964 that a car such as the XJ13 needed an experienced race driver to help develop it. Jack Brabham was approached in this regard however the challenge was eventually taken up by ex-Jaguar Apprentice David Hobbs. David Hobbs was recruited as the XJ13’s main test driver. In 1969 Hobbs was included in a FIA list of 27 drivers who were rated the best in the world, so he was the perfect man for the job.

Then it all went downhill,

In 1971 the Series 3 E-type was about to be launched with Jaguar’s first production V12 engine. The publicity team wanted a shot of the XJ13 at speed for the opening sequence, not the best decision ever made, the XJ13 was taken to MIRA for the filming with Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis at the wheel. Sadly, the car was driven by Dewis at ill-advised speeds on a damaged tyre, against the instructions of Jaguar director England i think we all know where this is going.

At 180 MPH a tyre blew out and the car careered off the track resulting in a big crash and therefore destroyed the only prototype XJ13 in the world, But if things couldn’t get any worse for jaguar at the time the Le Mans rules and regulations were changing for the worse and now cars had to have a specific power output and the maximum engine size had to be 3.0 therefore making the car obsolete. Although Dewis was unharmed. The wreck of the car was put back into storage never to be seen again or so we thought.

Some years later around 1971 ish, Edward Loades spotted the crashed XJ13 in storage at Jaguar and made the offer to ‘Lofty’ England that his company Abbey Panels should rebuild the car. The car was rebuilt, to a specification similar to the original, using some of the body jigs made for its original construction and at a cost of £1,000 to Jaguar. The XJ13 made its public debut in July 1973 when ‘Lofty’ drove it around Silverstone very cautiously at the British Grand Prix meeting. It is now displayed at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, UK.

It wasn't all bad,

Since the XK13’s engine was a testbed for Jaguar’s V12 engine, it was put in hibernation until the production V12 was launched with Series III E-type in 1971. This meant that the XJ13 became the first car to use the V12 engine which would eventually power Jaguars from 1971 to 1996. The road cars however had a chain driven SOHC engine built by Hassan/Baily.

Sometime after 2002, the XJ fell off a high kerb cracking the engine block and destroying the sump. Afterwards, the bold decision was made to once again rebuild the XJ13 and refurbish the engine to fully working condition. XK Engineering out of Coventry completely stripped the car and it’s now probably better than new. The finished car debuted at the 2007 Goodwood Festival of Speed where its full roar could be finally heard

what happened next.

So this car effectively had a very long production run from 1966 to being finally finished in 2007 and valued at around £7 million 2007 was also where that amazing engine was heard by the public for the first time in 35 years.and now goes to car events all over the UK. So the moral of the story is if you ever get the chance to see one of these in person it will not be the original car, one original car was built but its not the one seen today unfortunately. but you can still get kits for this car even though it will never get close to the real thing its as close as you will get in today’s world.

thanks for reading guys here is some glorious 5.0 litre V12 goodness for you to listen to