Certain car makers inspire a fierce devotion among owners and drivers. Jaguar is just such a brand, with Jaguar owners being well known — notorious, even — for their love of the brand. If you don’t believe us, consider the example of Mike Wilkinson’s Jaguar E-Type. 

Here’s the story: Jaguar built the Jaguar E-Type, also known as the Jaguar XK-E, from 1961 to 1975. Mr. Wilkinson talked his way into getting the folks at Jaguar to sell him a trailer load of parts for an E-Type after the production run had ended. The parts sat in their trailer for the better part of a few decades ’til Wilkinson, with the help of a fellow Jaguar die-hard, decided to figure out just what was in the trailer.

To their shock, the two men discovered most of a 1974 Jaguar XJ-E. Eight months (and quite a bit of labor) later, the car was completed and road-ready, and was in remarkably good shape for having been in a trailer for thirty years. We can’t say we blame them for the effort, since the E-Type could go from zero to sixty in 6.4 seconds thanks to its V12 engine, and could top out at 146 miles per hour. We’d never dream of suggesting you drive that fast (he said, with a wink), but the XK-E was in many ways the precursor for everything that came after, a masterpiece of design and engineering, and truly a classic.

We don’t have a 1974 XK-E in stock in the Jaguar of Peabody showroom at the moment. The good news is, we do have several of its worthy successors, like the 2015 Jaguar XF. Even better? You won’t have to assemble any of them yourself.