A Green, 1953, Jaguar C-type races down the Wellington Straight, at Silverstone during the RAC Woodcote Trophy for Pre '56 Sportscars
The Jaguar C-Type (also called the Jaguar XK120-C) is a racing sports car built by Jaguar and sold from 1951 to 1953. The "C" stands for "competition". The car used the XK 120 running gear of the contemporary road proven XK120 in a lightweight tubular frame designed by William Heynes and an aerodynamic aluminium body jointly developed by Heynes, R J (Bob) Knight and later Malcolm Sayer. A total of 53 C-Types were built, 43 of which were sold to private owners mainly in the US. The C-Type was successful in racing, most notably at the Le Mans 24 hours race, which it won twice. In 1951, the car won at its first attempt. The factory entered three, whose driver pairings were Stirling Moss and Jack Fairman, Leslie Johnson and triple Mille Miglia winner Clemente Biondetti, and the eventual winners, Peter Walker and Peter Whitehead. The Walker-Whitehead car was the only factory entry to finish, the other two retiring with lack of oil pressure. A privately entered XK120, owned by Robert Lawrie, co-driven by Ivan Waller, also completed the race, finishing 11th. In 1952, Jaguar, worried by a report about the speed of the Mercedes-Benz 300SLs that would run at Le Mans, modified the C-Type’s aerodynamics to increase the top speed. However, the consequent rearrangement of the cooling system made the cars vulnerable to overheating, and all three retired from the race. The Peter Whitehead-Ian Stewart and Tony Rolt/Duncan Hamilton cars blew head gaskets, and the Stirling Moss-Peter Walker car, the only one not overheating having had a full-sized radiator hurriedly fitted, lost oil pressure after a mechanical breakage. Testing by Norman Dewis at MIRA after the race proved that the overheating was caused more by the revisions to the cooling system than by the altered aerodynamics: the water pump pulley was undersized, so it was spinning too fast and causing cavitation; also the header tank was in front of the passenger-side bulkhead, far from the radiator.
Size: 4699px × 3173px
Location: Silverstone Circuit, Towcester, Northamptonshire, NN12 8TN
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -type, 24, 1953, 2019, 3442cc, 56, blakeney-edwards, circuit, class, classic, drivers, frederic, green, heynes, hours, jaguar, le, mans, motorsport, patrick, pre, rac, race, racing, silverstone, sportscars, straight, trophy, w4, wakeman, wellington, william, woodcote, xk120-
