1998 Jaguar Xk8 Base Convertible 2-door 4.0l on 2040-cars

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This Jaguar D-Type is what you should spend your multimillion-dollar holiday bonus on

The end of the year is fast approaching, your holiday shopping is done, and the mutual fund you help manage is paying out some serious bonuses. What do you do with all that sweet cash? Well, if it's over seven figures, we suggest hanging on to it until January when it could help you buy this amazing 1954 Jaguar D-Type race car. The D-Type, for those of you unfamiliar, is Jaguar's famous race car that gave birth to the road-going XKSS, one of which was owned by Steve McQueen. The D-Type was known for its successes on the track, and frequent appearances at Le Mans, with a victory at the endurance race in 1956. This particular car also raced there in 1954 with the Jaguar factory team, and behind the wheel was Sir Stirling Moss. According to RM Sotheby's, it led the race for a major chunk, but eventually retired due to brake issues. The car was campaigned at other events through the year, and it also saw time at the hands of a privateer team that bought the car in 1955. Many decades later, the car is being offered for public sale for the first time in its life at the RM Sotheby's auction in Arizona, Jan. 18-19. According to the auction company, the car features the original body, chassis, drivetrain and suspension. Between the history and the originality, the company is expecting the car to bring between $12 million and $15 million, hence the reason this is probably just for those with seriously massive holiday bonuses. But if you have the means, you could do way worse than spending it on this Jaguar. Related Video: Featured Gallery 1954 Jaguar D-Type View 33 Photos Image Credit: Patrick Ernzen Courtesy of RM Sotheby's Jaguar Auctions Convertible Racing Vehicles Classics jaguar d-type jaguar xkss

Jaguar's next turnaround plan outlines a major shift to upmarket luxury

Jaguar wants to reinvent itself again, this time as a purveyor of EVs that competes in the luxury space dominated by Bentley. It outlined a turnaround plan written to help it move upmarket while launching a new range of models. Company boss Thierry Bollore, a French industry veteran who briefly ran Renault in the late 2010s, told British magazine Auto Express he wants Jaguar to represent what he described as "modern luxury." He added his vision of modern luxury is "extremely reductive" in terms of refinement, modernity, engineering, and technologies. Jaguar said it will go EV-only, yet it scrapped the next-generation XJ at the 11th hour in 2021 because the sedan didn't fit its image of a re-imagined brand. Making Jaguar synonymous with "modern luxury" requires starting from scratch. "The situation at Jaguar was really a concern from outside," said Bollore after revealing Renault looked at purchasing Jaguar-Land Rover in the late 2010s, "and more than a concern from inside, because the brand has been damaged to a certain extent." That's why the turnaround plan calls for a blank slate to rebuild Jaguar on. Design work for an entirely new range of Jaguar models has been completed, the executive affirmed, and Auto Express speculates the portfolio will initially consist of three models: a two-door sports car (likely a follow-up to the F-Type) and a pair of crossovers. Note that there's no sedan on the horizon. These three cars will ride on the same modular architecture, though it's too early to tell if it will be developed in-house or shared with another carmaker. They'll wear a new design language that was forged by holding an internal contest three teams participated in. Competing with Bentley, among other carmakers, will require convincing customers to pay six-digit sums. "Luxury starts not far from GBP100,000," said Bollore, a figure which represents about $140,000 at the current conversion rate. As of writing, none of Jaguar's models start above $100,000, though some cross that threshold once options are piled on. Its cheapest model, the E-Pace, starts at $39,950. Its most expensive is the electric I-Pace at $69,850. No one would pay $140,000 for an E-Pace, even if it's electric and brimming with tech, so Jaguar's upcoming models will all be relatively large. That doesn't mean Bollore will put a leaping cat emblem on a Land Rover Range Rover and call it a good job well done. He wants to ensure the two sister brands coexist without overlapping.

Jaguar C-X75 production run canceled

"We feel we could make the car work, but looking at the global austerity measures in place now, it seems the wrong time to launch an 800,000-pound to 1 million-pound supercar."
Those words are from Jaguar Global Brand Director Adrian Hallmark, and as true as they may be, it still stings a little bit. After all, we've been looking forward to the Jaguar C-X75 ever since word came from Jolly Olde that it was green-lit for a short production run.
Some of the cool bits and pieces the world will now be without: a powerful but relatively miserly 1.6-liter turbocharged and supercharged four-cylinder engine, two electric motors driving all four wheels and a carbon fiber chassis developed by Williams F1. Sigh.