The Eagle Lightweight GT is the ultimate road-going evolution of one of the world’s rarest and most beautiful race cars, Jaguar’s Lightweight E-Type.
The process begins with an expert team carefully dismantling the original E-Type. Every single part is individually assessed and any necessary work undertaken to come up to the standard required for an Eagle E-Type. The tolerances are many times more demanding than those originally specified by Jaguar’s Competition Department.
The switch to lightweight castings is particularly important because reducing the weight towards the ends of the car reduces the polar moment of inertia, making it more agile and contributing to fine steering response and feel. Through extensive use of specialist lightweight materials including magnesium, Inconel and titanium, the Eagle Lightweight GT weighs just 1017 kg; not in stripped-out race configuration, but luxuriously specified for comfortable road use.
Comfortable road use also means resisting the temptation to give the Eagle Lightweight GT an exhaust note that shouts ‘race car’ or a track-focussed suspension calibration that too often makes such vehicles too harsh. Far more challenging is to combine taught, sports car dynamics with the ride quality and refinement of a world-class Grand Tourer. Working together with the seats and tyres, Eagle’s suspension, carefully adjusted geometry, spring rates, bushings and bespoke Ohlins adjustable dampers, ensures long distances can be completed in refreshing comfort.
Throughout the car, every component has been evaluated and, where even a marginal improvement can be engineered, has been upgraded to increase performance, comfort, durability and safety. Take seating as an example. The design of the floorpan, pedal mountings and the rear bulkhead have been tweaked to dramatically increase legroom in the E-Type’s notoriously cramped cabin while the seats are redesigned to improve safety, retention and long-term comfort. The remarkable attention to detail has even increased finger room around the seat adjusters, using the latest 3D printing techniques to create bespoke control levers.
That attention to detail is continued throughout the Eagle Lightweight GT in the most comprehensive review and enhancement of an E-Type ever undertaken, accomplished with great sensitivity to the original feel and aesthetic. The revisions, like the gorgeous peg-drive magnesium alloy wheels and aluminium three eared wheel spinner nuts, are ultimate evolutions of the correct period technologies, but there are also carefully selected modern systems that have been discreetly integrated.
Braking is by four piston, servo assisted vented discs, a subtly integrated electrical distribution panel increases safety and reliability and the extreme cabin heat of the original is solved by modern thermal barrier materials and the careful integration of a discreet air conditioning system; designed in-house to eliminate the compromises that would be inevitable with a bought-in design.
The result is a classic supercar that fuses the character and charm of the original Jaguar E-Type, on which the Eagle is based, with the intoxicating thrills of a 1963 factory Lightweight, thoughtfully and comprehensively re-engineered to ensure the new owner enjoys every mile, every day.