1990 Jaguar C Type replica

“ This isn't just a replica Works Lightweight C Type. It is close to a toolroom copy of Duncan Hamilton's Le Mans winning car, hand-built next to the real Hamilton car. In that respect, it is unique. ”
Being offered as part of our curated auction in conjunction with the Jaguar Drivers' Club and their 70th Anniversary at Brooklands on Sunday 12th July 2026.

Background
The Jaguar brand of today has DNA of a distinctly sporting nature running through it like words through a stick of rock.

The name is evocative of power and performance. Consciously or otherwise, the brand’s image and values somehow serve to quicken the pulse, sharpen the senses and free the imagination to dream of chequered flags, pit stops and podiums.

But it wasn’t always like that.

Jaguar’s now familiar sporting brand legacy was hard won back in the early 1950s by men to whom driving flat out in the rain, at night, in the 24 Heures du Mans endurance race must have seemed a relatively safe thing to do compared with their WWII experiences.

The C Type (the ‘C’ stands for competition) was based on the 3.4 litre twin-cam straight-6 engine and running gear of the XK120, a car whose Jessica Rabbit curves first seduced the motoring press at the 1948 London Motor Show.

It was the last in a noble line of two-seater racing cars in which you could drive from your Belgravia home to the circuit, enjoy a spot of lunch and a decent Margaux, win the race, and drive back again for a few celebratory snifters at Boodle's or the Athenaeum.

The first C Types came with an aerodynamic aluminium body, a lightweight tubular frame and an engine initially fettled to produce 205bhp or thereabouts.

In this guise, and driven by the Walker/Whitehead pairing, the C Type won Le Mans at its first attempt in 1951.

Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt went on to win the 1953 24 Heures du Mans race in a Works Lightweight C Type at an average speed of 108.85mph, the first time any entrant had averaged over 100mph.

This car had three DCO3 40mm Weber carburettors, which helped boost power to 220bhp. The car was also lighter and, vitally, had Dunlop disc brakes all round.

Before the race, Hamilton and Rolt had allegedly spent all night drinking whatever they could get their hands on in a bar near the circuit. They did this to drown their sorrows in the mistaken belief that they had been disqualified from starting the race due to a mix up over race numbers.

They were only disavowed of this misconception by Jaguar boss William Lyons at 10.00 a.m. on the morning of the race.

He found them in another bar, dragged them out, poured pints of black coffee down them and sent them off to get ready. The pair spent the day feeling increasingly hungover, tired and generally awful.

Finally, it was decided (by Hamilton) that a restorative hair-of-the-dog was what was needed.

Probably at least two hairs, possibly more than one dog.

A couple of hours later, Tony Rolt responded to the fall of the starter’s flag and sprinted across the track towards XKC 051 in the company of 59 other drivers heading for their respective cars and 24 hours of flat-out motor racing.

It really doesn’t bear thinking about.

During the race, a pigeon demolished the windscreen at 150mph and then travelled a few inches further in order to break Hamilton’s nose, perhaps in a final sacrificial act of avian revenge.

Despite all of this, they crossed the finishing line ahead of everyone else and so claimed a legendary and heroic victory.

But perhaps we really shouldn’t be too surprised by that.

Yes, of course, Hamilton and Rolt were exceptionally talented drivers.

But they were also made of far, far tougher stuff than we pampered, risk-averse boomers and millennials.

Among his many claims to fame, the (physically and figuratively) larger-than-life figure of Hamilton had raced yachts and survived plane crashes as a WWII pilot of Lysanders and Seafires in the Fleet Air Arm.

He was acknowledged by his peers as being probably the best wet weather racing driver in an era that included Fangio, Moss, Ascari and Hawthorn, and he seems to have done most of his derring-do in a gentlemanly fug of pipe smoke, engine oil and brandy fumes.

His co-driver, Major Anthony Peter Roylance Rolt, MC & Bar, had escaped from German PoW camps 7 times (yes, you read that right) during WWII before the Germans got properly fed up with him and sent him to Colditz.

When the Americans liberated Colditz in 1945, Rolt was just putting the finishing touches to the famous escape glider he and his fellow prisoners had built and concealed in the castle’s roof space.

These were chaps straight out of an edition of Boy’s Own magazine.

They flew planes, fired Bren guns and crashed Rolls-Royces into London buses.

They hid Lago-Talbots in French coal-bunkers and gave Jerry a bloody nose whenever they got the chance.

They had friends called Lofty, Jumbo, Chalky and Stinker.

They enjoyed racing D Types at 200mph in the searing heat of a Dakar Grand Prix after a particularly fine bottle of lunch.

Splendid.

The racing car in which Hamilton and Rolt won the 1953 Le Mans 24 heures is one of only three Works Lightweight C Types ever built.

It is numbered XKC 051.

The C Type recreation we have for you today is a very close replica, both cosmetically and mechanically, of that iconic car.

Overview
This car is the 1990 replica Works Lightweight C Type.

If you want, you could buy an original Works Lightweight C Type, next time one comes up for sale, provided you’ve got £10 million in the bank.

Or you could buy one of the ‘continuation’ C Types released by Jaguar Classic in 2022.

You’ll probably need around £2 million for one of those. But you won’t be able to drive it on the open road, obviously.

You’ll struggle to find a new replica because, well, Jaguar have been busy ‘discouraging’ any firm from making them, as have Aston Martin, Bentley and the other grand old marques who have gone down the ‘continuation’ classics route.

Can you see where we’re going with this?

This 1991 replica has to be one of the few remaining real-world routes to C Type thrills and an automotive experience that is gloriously, wondrously evocative of 1950’s Le Mans glamour, danger and excitement.

The owner, Roy Swann (sadly now deceased, hence the sale), first saw XKC 051 in the 1980s in a Bagshot car showroom owned by Duncan Hamilton and his son, Adrian.

Adrian had recently bought back XKC 051 from Briggs Cunningham, the buccaneering American collector who was something of an analogue for Duncan Hamilton in that he’d raced at Le Mans, skippered an America’s Cup-winning yacht and been part of the USA Olympic bobsleigh team.

Roy fell in love with the car.

He then met Duncan Hamilton in (where else?) their local pub.

“My God, what a character. They don’t make ‘em like that any more”, Roy recalled some years later.

Duncan told him that it was for sale to anyone with around £600,000 to spare.

Roy chuckled at the absurdity of this ridiculous sum.

Today, you could add at least one nought to that figure. As far as we’re aware, XKC 051 was the property of Duncan Hamilton’s son until a few years ago.

Disappointed, but not deterred, Roy set about building himself the next best thing to the original XKC 051: a seriously good replica.

What’s more, he persuaded Duncan Hamilton to get involved in the project.

The car was built by the now defunct firm of Le Mans Sports Cars and completed in 1991 and takes its registration from a 1961 Jaguar Mk II donor car.

We understand that, thanks to the generosity of Duncan and Adrian Hamilton, this replica was actually built alongside XKC 051 at Le Mans Sports Cars’ Stoke-On-Trent workshop, with the original serving as the template and reference point for the replica.

We further understand that Duncan Hamilton was on-hand on occasion to give both advice and his blessing to the project.

This is almost a perfect toolroom replica, but not quite.

It doesn’t have the torsion bar front suspension of the original (at first glance, the fitted suspension may be sourced from that Mk2 Jaguar that donated its registration) and the servo-assisted brakes appear rather better than they would have been originally.

Those digressions aside, this is a very accurate, very high-quality, hand-built replica and one that might be just a few tweaks and changes away from FIA eligibility, should you be so inclined.

It’s very faithful to the original cosmetically - and, as far as we can tell, mechanically.

A measure of that faithfulness can be found in the extent to which it mirrors last minute amends that were made to XKC 051 back in 1953.

Note the circular metal plate affixed to the n/s/r panel. This was fitted to the original car once it became apparent that there was no simple way of accessing the fuel tank sender without it.

Note, too, the parallel ribs running vertically down the rear section. These were fitted after a 1953 track test as a way of damping down scuttle shake.

The 3.4 litre straight-6 engine with its triple Weber twin-choke carburettors was tuned from new to match the performance of the 1953 original and, to that end, has a balanced and Tufftrided crankshaft, lightened and balanced flywheel, resized, bushed and balanced con rods, and fast road cams.

The car looks right and sits properly, with an authentically low, svelte grace, on its multi-tubular space-frame chassis (as with the original).

Duncan Hamilton insisted Roy attached a Jaguar badge to the front, so he could easily distinguish it from the original car sat next to it.

And it drives superbly.

Light, sensitive, responsive steering. A slick, fast, notchy gear change. Bags of power and torque. A well-balanced, agile chassis and suspension set-up. And a fabulous throaty roar from the engine and exhaust.

It’s a simply glorious piece of machinery.

We defy anyone to drive this on a sunny day and not come back grinning from ear to ear.

The car is showing under 1250 miles on the odometer and we have no reason to doubt this figure. It has spent its life largely inside a climate-controlled dry garage.

The car has had little or no use in recent years, but it has had a basic recommissioning (new oil, fuel, plugs etc.).  The engine starts and runs nicely.

Estimate: £80,000 - £120,000

View Current Bid Price HERE