Jaguar C-Type Continuation review

When you learn of the work that has gone into the recreation of this car you begin to realise how a seven-digit price tag develops. The 3.4-litre XK engine block has been retooled. The complex Dunlop disc brake system, developed out of early-1950s aviation technology, has been reverse-engineered. Intensive detail work followed the recreation of the car in digital form from original blueprints and the measurement of original cars.

The 1953 Le Mans-winning iteration of the C-Type was chosen for recreation, this version featuring the-then revolutionary disc brakes and triple Weber carburation for a 220bhp power output.

As it weighs only 1063kg, this C-Type goes really rather well – and feels appealingly odd, too. The oddness stems from the car’s newness. Even aboard an expensively restored old car, you’re likely to find components that hint at its age. Not so in this Jaguar, where every old-fashioned-looking item is new and consistently so. That extends to the physical experience, too, this car feeling taut, tight, strong and rattle-free, just as a new car should.

Although it isn’t quiet. The exhaust roars and occasionally pops explosively, air rushes past you and the twin-cam six delivers its considerable urge against a rising crescendo of combustive activity. Yet you can easily detect the XK engine’s innately silken character, an occasional pick-up stumble reminding you that it’s carburettor-fed.

Stumbles are more likely from you, the driver, until you’re familiar, the synchromesh-free gearbox requiring deft footwork, as does the sudden clutch. Still, the rack-and-pinion steering is far superior to the recirculating-ball variety of the standard XK120, which feels like you’re pushing against a very heavy item of furniture. It’s much lighter in the C-Type, allowing for a less nautically dimensioned wheel and the chance to pick up intel on the state of the road and the tyres’ purchase on it.

This is a car that can be made to dance in four-wheel drifts, although not by this driver, despite the steering’s accuracy and the line-tightening that a closed throttle will induce. It’s three-figure brisk – and impressively stable – on the test track’s straights and quick through corners once mastered. And a track is the best place for it, not only because that’s what the original was built for but also because this 2021 C-Type can't legally be driven on the road.