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1953 Jaguar C-Type Goes Under the Hammer

The same make and model that won the Le Mans 24-Hours race twice in 1951 and 1953, a 1953 Jaguar C-Type, is to be sold by Bonhams at the Goodwood Revival sale in Sussex tomorrow, September 17, 2010. The example on offer was handed over to its first owner in December 1952, painted in special Blue with red trim.

The car was raced in the 1953 Rallye Soleil-Cannes, but crashed, reputedly due to a trailing arm breaking. It was then driven in the 1953 Mille Miglia round-Italy race, when it again crashed, after the driver lost control and tripped over a roadside kerb. Both its occupants were thrown out during the incident, one losing his life and the other badly injured.

The sport-racing two-seater went through extensive restoration between 1985 and 1991 and is today described as “outstandingly usable and potentially extremely competitive.”

The vehicle has been used in historic events, starting with a class victory at Montlhery in June 1992. The car was displayed at Retromobile Paris in 1993 and accumulated a half-dozen awards through to 2001 when it was honoured in the St Raphael Concours. In circuit racing, the '016' has won its class at Montlhery in 1994 and 2000, it was second in class in the 2000 Targa Florio Retro, was displayed yet again at Retromobile 2002 and was raced in September that year at the Le Mans Classics meeting.

“This is plainly not a top-drawer, absolutely original, museum-standard Jaguar C-Type, but we commend it to you as being, within its class, a potentially highly-competitive Historic sports-racing car of uncontested lineage and with now well-understood, well-established and substantiated continuous history,”
a statement from Bonhams reads.

The 1953 Jaguar C-Type '016' has attracted a pre-sale estimate of GBP800,000 - GBP1,000,000.
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