Danger zone
WHEN JAGUAR’S Tony Bell asked the pilot of the SEPECAT Jaguar fighter jet how close to the E-type’s roof he could get, his startling reply was, “How thick is the paint?”
The harebrained stunt in early 1971, arranged by a Sunday Observer journalist, for it to fly low over the new Series 3 was certainly worthy of Jaguar’s latest generation of sports car. More importantly, it was a celebration of British engineering, and the perfect way to demonstrate the new plane and Jaguar’s masterful 5.3-litre V12.
Echoing events for the first use of the 3.4-litre XK engine (which had been destined for the 1950 Mk VII, but was used in the XK 120 two years earlier), the V12 had been designed for the eventual XJ12 saloon of 1972, but Jaguar’s engineering director, Bill Heynes, decided the V12 should be ‘tried out’ in the E-type first. Plus, due to American regulations on emissions, the existing 4.2 unit in the E-type Series 2 was being strangled; the V12 would give the car the performance boost it needed as it entered its twilight
