Jaguar Land Rover Classics

Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the Vicarious Spring 2025 print issue, where it debuted as part of our “Discovered” series. We’re thrilled to share it now with our online audience. Subscribe today and never miss an issue!

If you have even a passing interest in cars – or the world of business, it must be said – or even if you don’t, chances are you’ve been hearing a little about Jaguar lately. The classic British brand whose models were called “the most beautiful car in the world” by none other than Mr. Enzo Ferrari himself recently announced that it was going through a massive paradigm shift into the world of the battery-electric vehicle. At the time of writing, there are no plans to make any gas-powered Jags going forward.

Here’s the thing, though; what of the world of classic Jaguars and Land Rovers? Those much-loved roadsters, coupes and four-wheelers that were the bastion of the British car industry for decades – as Jaguar moves in to this electrified future with the likes of the wild Type 00 concept, what’s being done to preserve their memory?

Well, quite a lot, actually.

In 2017 – ostensibly with the brand’s future in mind – Jaguar opened Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) Classic; a no-holds barred deep bow to all things classic JLR. Don’t be fooled by JLR Classic’s industrial-ish environs just outside their HQ in Coventry, England – the famous gates to the Ferrari factory in Maranello, this is not — because inside this complex of low, single-story white buildings is the epicentre of Jaguar’s history.

As soon as you step through the similarly nondescript double doors into the facility, you’re hit with it: there’s the requisite Jag and Landie memorabilia (books, bags, hats, Lego sets) but this is more a showroom than a lobby, with a kaleidoscope of Defenders standing in formation on your left. To the right sits not an original XKSS (the roadgoing version of the Le Mans-winning D-Type racer) but a continuation model – which is an important designation. In 1957, a fire at Jaguar’s Browns Lane factory consumed nine of the 25 D-Types that were slated to get the road car conversion. Of course, you may be able to consume the materials, but no fire can consume a number and the VINs were preserved, allowing Jaguar to make these “Continuation” versions while keeping their original VINs. The one on display is owned by Jaguar and labelled Continuation Car Zero e.g. the first one they completed. Indeed, keeping everything Jaguar Land Rover Classic does as close to original as possible is an integral part of the game.

“It’s not like we take all the old bits and throw them away,” said Rich Cotton, Product Marketing Lead at Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works. “We try to use as much of the original car as possible. At the price point these vehicles are, it’s necessary we do that.” The “price point” Cotton’s referring to? Well, it’s definitely a case of “if you have to ask…” but nevertheless: think high six figures, sometimes landing over the seven-figure mark.

The same meticulous attention to detail happens with the Land Rover department as well – those kaleidoscopic Defenders that greeted us upon arrival? They’ve all been built using donor vehicles and parts – just 30 per year — but have also been given a once-over to make them more tractable in the modern world. New ZF eight-speed gearboxes, New V8s, special wheels and interior touches are all the order of the day. To the naked eye, they are all classic Defenders but with a showroom sheen not seen for quite some time.

Speaking of showroom quality: I will admit that my visions of a workshop in a facility entitles “Jaguar Land Rover Classics” were somewhat more spartan than what’s actually going on here. The lighting, the white walls and floors, the pristine lifts, cranes and tools without a spec of dust on them remind much more of Maranello than the Midlands.

It’s one thing to see these vehicles displayed nicely up front, but to walk through here and see them on lifts and rolling roads and jacks in all their naked glory is a real treat. Look closely, and you may even see some things that haven’t quite been released; for now, all the Defender models have hard tops but I could have sworn I saw one with a cloth top just over there…

What’s really interesting here is the confluence of what JLR has done over the years. It’s a rare thing to walk through a workshop and seen an E-Type’s hood at one station, a Defender’s door at another and oh look! There’s an ultra-rare 1-of-300 XE SV Project 8 leaving the body shop there and what looks like a Defender-based Bowler CSP Prototype making its way out of the rear of the shop and wait a minute…rear of the shop? What do we have here?

Well, what we have here can only be described as a warehouse crammed with all things Jaguar, Land Rover, Range Rover and Swallow Sidecar Company, which would become “Jaguar” in 1945. Jaguar Land Rover doesn’t really have a company museum as such – an argument could be made for the British Motor Museum nearby, but we digress – so this is essentially as close as you’re going to get to anything “factory spec” or “official”.

Defenders of all eras and body styles (including a cab-over military version); Jaguar E-Types and XKEs and that car’s replacement, the XJ-S , Formula E race cars, Range Rovers, any number of XK120s 140s and 150s and my personal favourite, up there on the tops shelf: Bond cars – but not just any Bond cars. We’re not talking resto’d and machine gunne’d versions of 007’s Aston Martin DB5 – this is a JLR facility, and other brands need not apply — or even bad guy Zao’s XKR from Die Another Day. Oh no; we’re talking something much grittier than that. You see, many of the cars used in the films not just by the main characters, but even my henchmen or tertiary characters were essentially loaded to the studio by JLR and when the shoot was over wouldn’t you know it? Many of those that survived came back. That’s why there’s a trifecta of Land Rovers with bashed in bumpers; they had crashed on-set. Or what about Mr. Hink’s (the one played by Dave Bautista) C-X75 supercar concept? Oh, it’s here all right and with the burn marks – BURN MARKS – to prove it. Oh, and just for good measure there’s a pristine C-X75 parked just below and behind it. Incredible.

 

It all serves to show how deep-seated Jaguar’s roots are, how conscious the brand is of its imprint on cars, on trucks and SUVs, on Britain, the world and indeed, on Hollywood. No matter what happens going forward, JLR Classic is here to show it sees no reason that it will ever be forgot.