Automotive

The Jaguar E-Type was a true revelation to the motoring world when it was unveiled for the very first time at the Geneva Motor Show in June 1961. The stylish, sleek bodywork and powerful engine made it the fastest and most spectacular production sports car available at the time.

The Jaguar E-Type’s great appeal lay in the fact that its looks and specification owed so much to Jaguar’s sports car racing successes of the Fifties. But while there were strong overtones of the D-Type in the design and the prototype and stillborn Jaguar XKSS in its presentation, this didn’t suggest the unattainable to the common man. Surprisingly what was almost as stunning as the E-Type’s looks and performance was the fact that is was affordable.

At around the price of £2000 new in 1961, and straight off the forecourt of a Jaguar Dealer, the E-type offered sports car performance, style and envy at only half the price of an Aston Martin DB4 and only the third of the cost of a Ferrari.

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Hailed by many as the most beautiful car ever to come out of Japan, The Mazda RX-7 took seventeen years of development before it finally appeared on the streets in 1978.

Without the perseverance of a team of Japanese motor engineers and designers under the leadership of Kenichi Yamamoto, in the development of the Wankel or rotary engine, this stunningly designed, high performance sports car, would never have happened.

In 1961 the Japanese Company Toyo Kogyo, later to be renamed Mazda, licensed from the patent owners NSU-Opel of Germany, the full rights to develop a new rotary engine.

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