Jaguar had no idea that the E-type would cause such widespread hysteria. It had planned to build what it naively deemed was a generous production run of 250 cars. By the time doors had closed on the Geneva Motor Show in 1961, where the sultry E-type had debuted, the Coventry marque had taken north of 500 orders. And the reception was no less enthusiastic back in England, company test driver Norman Dewis describing it like ‘a prairie fire ripping through the country’. The ever-astute founder of Jaguar Sir William Lyons understood the importance of not resting on any laurels. With demand far outstripping supply and deposits flying in especially quickly from across the pond, the earliest domestic E-types were allocated to those who could drum up further publicity. In Coventry, chief designer Claude Baily promptly initiated ‘Project ZP’, the goal of which was to rapidly transform seven E-type Roadsters into competition cars capable of beating the might of Maranello. This fabulous example, the subject of our feature story today, stands as the most original of the ‘Project ZP’ septet and thus one of the most important E-types in the world.
 
Alex Easthope
Deputy Editor