1974 Jaguar E-Type Series 3 V12 Roadster - Manual

A decade after the Jaguar E-Type Series I arrived, the design progressively matured through 1971 with the introduction of the Series 3. Designed to showcase the new smooth and torquey 5.3-litre engine, originally developed for Le Mans, the Series 3 cars were available as a Roadster (convertible) or a 2+2 Coupé. The new cars were easily identifiable by the large cross-slatted front grille, flared wheel arches, wider tyres, a larger bonnet bulge, updated bumpers, four exhaust tips and a badge on the rear that proclaimed it to be a V12. It also featured uprated brakes, power steering as standard and a large horizontal scoop added to the underside of the bonnet to assist with cooling. The interior was entirely new in the V12, with more comfortable seating, stylish new door panels and a smaller, dished and leather-rimmed steering wheel. Being slightly larger and altogether much softer in nature, the E-Type in Series 3 form had lost the wildness of its youth but gained the long-legged touring profile, to which it was arguably better suited. Approximately 7,990 Series 3 Roadsters were sold worldwide before production ceased in the mid-1970s.

In 1974, Jaguar decided to end E-Type production in style with a final run of 50 black Roadsters, known as the ‘E-Type Commemorative’, each featuring a plaque bearing a facsimile of Sir William Lyons’ signature and the very last of these, chassis #2872, went straight to Jaguar’s Museum, where it remains today.

The car presented here is 1974 Jaguar E-Type Series 3 V12 Roadster with the desirable manual gearbox and is a highly significant Jaguar, being chassis #2822 - fascinatingly, making it the last regular-production E-Type to leave the Browns Lane production line (excluding the commemorative run). This matching-numbers car is one of the finest examples of its type available anywhere in the world.

Built to a right-hand-drive specification, it was ordered in British Racing Green with a Tan leather interior and manual gearbox. Its original owner was based in Edinburgh, keeping it until 1981, before two further London owners between 1981 and 1987. By 1994 it was acquired by a collector in Hong Kong, who would go on to own it until 2019; the car spent most of those 25 years at the collector’s holiday home in Hawaii, where it was well-preserved and used sparingly. Having been shipped to the collector's European home in Austria in 2015, a full restoration was commissioned by marque experts (all thoroughly documented with images/invoices), which took three years to complete, culminating in a refinishing in its original British Racing Green, along with new tan upholstery. The resultant car is, quite simply, superb.

Notably, it features the correct period chrome wire wheels and an upgraded wooden steering wheel. Original instruments and other original features have been retained. Incredibly, it was not driven since, having been carefully preserved to ensure it remained in excellent condition. Our vendor then bought the car from an international auction house in 2019, importing it from Austria and registering it here in the UK. He has enjoyed only a few hundred miles in it, it now indicating just 25,884 miles (atoc), spending approximately £5,000 on its maintenance/upkeep in that time. It is accompanied by two full files of paperwork, a lot of invoices showing the work done, the vast majority done by Jaguar and/or Jaguar specialists.

Needless to say, this is an historically significant Jaguar that would stand proud in any collection.