THE ITALIAN JAGUARS

Jaguar has often set the pace when it comes to marrying high performance with jaw-slackening beauty. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped outside coachbuilders and styling houses from trying to improve upon perfection, with Italian designers to the fore. Over the past seven decades, there has been a raft of ‘Italian Jaguars’, some being met with hoopla and positive ink, others conspicuously less so. Here, in the first instalment of our two-part investigation of Giaguari Latini, are the various creations to emerge from assorted carrozzerie during the 1950s and early ’60s. They span everything from the XK series to the MkVII saloon via the D-Type. And in the next issue of Classic Jaguar, we’ll bring the subject rather more up to date, covering all manner of Italian Jaguars from restyled E-Types to XJ220s… and all things in-between.

BERTONE JAGUAR XK150

Carrozzeria Bertone’s Franco Scaglione was one of the great free thinkers among car designers. Part