Author: Aoife Moriarty
The stunning olive green automobile was the seventh of just 54 customer D-Types built by the company over a three year period.
The car was originally bought in 1955 by four-time consecutive winner of the Australian Drivers’ Championship Bib Stillwell, who raced it to victory at the Bathurst Road Racing Championship the following year.
Jaguar expert Chris Keith-Lucas, who serviced the endurance auto for almost 30 years, said: “In my opinion, (this) car remains one of the best production D-Types in existence today. To the very best of my knowledge, (it) has retained its principle components since the end of the 1950s. It is one of my favourite D-Types.”
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RM Auctions described the D-Type as “delicate yet aggressive, mixing style with performance”, with the model introducing aviation industry technology to race car design for the very first time.
Once owned by British racing driver Richard Attwood, the model recently auctioned has a particularly impressive race history. Debuting in 1954 at 24 Hours of Le Mans – where it achieved second place – it went onto three consecutive victories at the competition between 1955 and 1957.
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In 1961 its nose was replaced with a long-nose version in the style of the Le Mans-winning D-Types of the day, but this feature was corrected with an original short-nose bonnet in 2004. However the long-nose was also supplied to the anonymous buyer with the car, due to it “remaining part of its notable history”.
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Image Credit: Simon Clay ©2013 Courtesy of RM Auctions
