Of course, when Jim Randle, Jaguar’s director of product engineering, sketched his idea for a new supercar at the end of 1984, he envisaged it with a V12, just like the company’s Group C ...

Until the E-type, Jaguar co-founder Sir William Lyons had styled all his company’s road cars. His work included the XK line of sports cars, which by the late ’50s had evolved into the XK150.