Since its headline-generating Geneva launch of March 1961, the E-type had proved to be another smash hit for Jaguar, with steady development helping to ensure that sales remained buoyant. This process included its engine capacity being increased (from 3.8 to 4.2 litres) in October 1964, but it was via the arrival of the extended-wheelbase 2+2 in early ’66 that Jaguar properly expanded the E-type’s potential customer base. At last, here was a version of Britain’s best-known sports car that could appeal to the family buyer.
The extra nine inches in the 2+2’s wheelbase certainly made a big difference to its accommodation levels, although the small back seat that it gained was arguably only suitable for two small(ish) children. Still, it represented a whole new market sector for the E-type – a version suited to anyone who insisted on taking their offspring with them, or even just those who wanted some extra room for luggage once the back seat was folded flat. The 2+2 might not have been the most elegant E-type of 1966 but it was certainly the most practical.
Its arrival, however, coincided with what were challenging times for Jaguar. The Coventry firm was still a minnow of the motoring world, dwarfed by its mass-market contemporaries – and this inevitably brought problems when it came to the ever-rising cost of new model development. The start of the decade had seen expansion for Jaguar thanks to its acquisition of Daimler, but Sir William Lyons knew that later collaboration with bigger players
