Jaguar E-Type Zero: electrified classic set to enter production next year

Jaguar has announced plans to put its all-electric E-Type Zero into limited production next year.

The British car company unveiled a one-off concept version of the electrified 1960s classic last year. The car made its debut at the royal wedding a few months ago and this sparked demand from the public for a production version.

Jaguar’s Classic division, the subsidiary behind the limited run of million-pound E-Type Lightweights in 2014, will head up development of the classic EV, according to Auto Express.

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Buyers can supply their own E-Type for electric conversion, or request the Classic team to source a donor car, the magazine says.

Although the conversion involves swapping the vehicle’s engine and transmission for an electric motor, Evo says the process is done “so sympathetically” to the classic sports car that everything is fully reversible.

This means that Jaguar’s Classic division can supply buyers with the base car’s engine and transmission in case they want to revert back to the vehicle’s original spec in future.

The luxury car firm hasn’t confirmed how much power the converted cars will produce, but Autocar says last year’s E-Type Zero concept came equipped with a 295bhp electric motor and a top speed of around 150mph.

The carmaker is aiming for a battery range of roughly 170 miles on a single charge thanks to a 40kWh battery pack, the motoring magazine reports.

Given that values of original E-Types are continuing to soar – with some examples selling for six-figure sums – prices for the electrified sports car aren’t cheap.

Buyers can expect to shell out over £300,000 for an E-Type Zero, says Autocar.

As Jaguar is only converting existing cars, rather than producing more examples of the classic, the production run of Zeros will be limited by the amount of E-Types remaining and by those who want to convert them into EVs.

Production kicks off next year. Customer deliveries will begin in the summer of 2020.