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Eagle Lightweight GT meticulous Jaguar restomod is 'the best an E-Type can be'

England claims so many boutique, specialist car companies doing such sensational work that if an artist were to draw a national muse for Britannia, she would hold a scepter in one hand and a gear shift in the other. Next up in the island's crowded showroom of posh vehicular gems, Eagle presents its Lightweight GT. The slinky coupe started as a Series 1 Jaguar E-Type (built from 1961 to 1968), then, after 8,000 hours of work in the chrysalis of Eagle's East Sussex workshops, the coupe emerges as a modern and much more comfortable version of Jaguar's factory Lightweight racers from 1963. Some context: After Jaguar stepped away from racing in the late 1950s, the company decided to convert 25 incomplete D-Type chassis into the road-legal XKSS roadster. Come 1962, with the D-Type and competition still on its mind, Jaguar toyed with its new E-Type road car to create the Low Drag Coupe for competition. The factory built just one, powered by a mightier version of the 3.8-liter straight-six in the E-Type that used a wide-angle cylinder head designed for the D-Type. The next year, Jaguar's racing fancy expressed itself in the E-Type Lightweight, still harking back to the D-Type with all-aluminum bodywork and an aluminum block for the 3.8-liter. The automaker planned to fabricate 18 Lightweights, but only got around to building 12. The Lightweights didn't dominate any of the big races, but privateers put them to effective use in smaller series. Their pedigree, aura, and multi-million-dollar valuations convinced Ford to debut an Advanced Lightweight Coupe Concept at the 2005 Geneva Motor Show, and in 2014 convinced Jaguar to complete the six remaining cars in the 18-car build.      Enter Eagle. After its Speedster, Low Drag GT and Spyder GT, the firm calls the Lightweight GT the answer to the question, "What’s the best an E-Type can be?" The hand-formed aluminum skin takes 2,500 hours to shape, revised slightly for better aerodynamics and comfort. A deeper ramp angle in front leads to deeper side sills, which bolster chassis stiffness, and with a lower floorpan, put the driver lower in the car and give him more headroom. Larger wheel arches fit 16-inch magnesium alloy versions of the peg-drive wheel Dunlop introduced in 1954, an inch larger than the wheels on the original Lightweights, and aluminum, three-eared knock-offs. There's steeper rake to the windshield and backlight.

Jaguar's Callum: 'Huge' opportunities with electric vehicles

Eventually, some brave innovator, with an imagination light years ahead of the rest of us mere mortals, will envision an automotive future that the rest of us can't conceive. This person will step up and tell us how electric vehicles have the potential to change our lives for the better. They'll have the guts to tell us that if we could only open our eyes, we'd see that there's a way to get from one place to another that doesn't pollute the air we breathe. They'll explain that it won't just be globally responsible, it'll be magnificent. Yes, the electric car needs a champion, a figurehead, someone so inspirational that comic book superheroes are modeled after him. Finally, that champion has revealed himself. Saying out loud what the enlightened few of us know but dare not utter for fear of ridicule, our hero has spoken. "Electrification will kickstart the biggest change in automotive design in history," Ian Callum, design director at Jaguar told Autocar. That Jaguar sees the potential for electric vehicles is welcome progress. Sarcasm aside, that Jaguar sees the potential for electric vehicles is welcome progress. Even more appealing is that Callum approaches the potential of EVs from a design angle, where the slate is essentially blank, he feels, and so much is possible. "The opportunities an electric powertrain offers are huge," Callum says, "especially in terms of the space for occupants. By removing so much of the mechanical hardware and placing the batteries in the floor plan you open up all sorts of possibilities with packaging." To peer into Callum's mind when it comes to EV design would be extraordinary to behold. In many ways, his vision truly is something most of us cannot grasp completely, having spent a long career designing some of the most desirable cars of our time for some of the most prestigious automotive brands on the planet. So when he talks about the freedom EVs present from a design standpoint, it's not difficult to get excited. A Jaguar EV isn't as far-fetched as it might seem at first. Plus, a Jaguar EV isn't as far-fetched as it might seem at first, as Callum explains. "I'm clear in my mind that an electric Jaguar would be suitable for the brand," he says. "You have to move with the times and design for the opportunities. Look at the C-X75 concept – that was a car that was designed for an alternative powertrain, and nobody had any complaints about how that looked.

With a new Jaguar and the Shell app, your car can pay for its own gas

Contactless payments are making their way into the car. Jaguar and Shell have the first major rollout, allowing you to pay for fuel through the car's touchscreen. Of course you'll still have to get out of the car to actually pump the fuel into the car, but hey, progress, right? Apple Pay and PayPal will be available payment methods from the start, and Android Pay will be added later. For this all to work, you'll need a new Jaguar (or Land Rover) with the InControl infotainment system, a connected phone with the InControl app and Shell app, some space in your tank, and some electronic money. When you pull up to a Shell station and launch the Shell app through the touchscreen, the car will use geolocation to figure out which station you're at and then prompt you to enter the pump number you're next to (don't want to pay for someone else's fuel now do you?). Once that's done, you tell the system how much fuel you want (it's not clear if you can just fill the tank like most normal people do) and then the screen in the car shows you a receipt; one is also sent to you via email. While this might just seem like trading one screen for another and entering info through your car instead of at the pump, contactless payments also have an added level of security over pulling out a credit card. (Credit card skimmers, which steal card data when you go to swipe at a kiosk or ATM, have been popular at gas stations.) It will also be welcome in the winter months, when you can limit your exposure time. Plus you'll never again have to respond to this incomplete sentence, which greets us at Shell stations everywhere: "Is this debit card?" InControl is available on every Jaguar and Land Rover model. And if you get this Shell app working on an F-Pace with the Jaguar Activity Key, you'll have the latest in minimal-touch technology. The system will roll out to people in the UK first and should arrive in the US later this year. Related Video: Jaguar Land Rover Technology Smartphone Luxury shell paypal