At its Geneva debut in March 1961, Jaguar’s E-Type arrived with a form and performance so startling that it immediately redefined expectations of the production sports car. Its impossibly long bonnet, tapering tail, and low, purposeful stance owed much to the competition-bred thinking behind Jaguar’s C-Type and D-Type, while Malcolm Sayer’s aerodynamic sensibility gave the design an effortless, enduring purity. Beneath the bonnet lay Jaguar’s formidable 3.8-liter twin-cam XK six, breathing through triple SU carburetors and delivering the sort of performance ordinarily associated with far costlier machinery.

The very earliest E-Types are particularly coveted for their distinctive flat cabin floors, welded bonnet louvres, and external bonnet latches, details that were quickly revised as production developed and which make these initial specification examples compelling markers of the E-Type in its most uncompromised and elemental form.

Chassis 875272 was built on 21 July 1961 and completed in a highly attractive combination of Carmen Red over black upholstery with a black convertible top. Imported through Jaguar Cars of New York, it was delivered new to San Jose, California, beginning a life spent entirely in the temperate climate of the American West Coast. Its second owner, also of San Jose, acquired the Jaguar during the mid-1960s and retained it for nearly two decades before it was placed into long-term storage by a known series of successive enthusiasts before finally receiving a comprehensive restoration in 2014 by Images Auto Body at a reported cost well into the six-figures.

Presented today in its factory-correct colors, this exceptional E-Type retains its matching-numbers chassis, engine, cylinder head, and body, as confirmed by the accompanying Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust certificate, and is further complemented by a rare and desirable matching factory hardtop.

A beautifully restored, matching-numbers, early-production E-Type Roadster with a desirable West Coast history, chassis 875272 offers an outstanding opportunity to acquire one of the most evocative and collectable expressions of Jaguar’s immortal sporting icon.