Simply Abu Dhabi XXIV

2 4 9 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I Company chief Sir William Lyons was looking for something new as the competition was catching up the to the 180mph D-Type so he decided to sell the remaining 25 race cars on the assembly line as production cars. They needed to be modified back to road specification by including a taller windscreen and a door on the left side for a passenger. The section of bodywork separating the two seats was also removed as was the distinctive aerodynamic fin that sat behind the driver and flowed along the boot lid. Then, a fire swept through Jaguar’s factory in Browns Lane, Coventry, which put a sudden stop to production with just 16 cars being completed in 1957. Nearly all of these cars were sold to the US, with arguably the most famous example sold to American actor Steve McQueen. Average prices for an XKSS, if found now, hover around the $12 million mark (AED45m). With this in mind, Jaguar decided to go back and finish the job by building the remaining nine cars and finishing the job 60 years later. Called the Continuation Series, the 2017 XKSS is faithful to the 1957 model right down to the custom-made high profile tyres and period-correct gauges, tail lights and wheels. They’ve even dragged out the blueprints for the original 250bhp, 3.4-litre, double overhead cam, triple carburettor straight six engine and four-speed manual gearbox, building it all from scratch – and we’ve been told that power and torque figures will also be identical to the original. The ‘lost’ nine will be sold to what Jaguar describes as “a select group of established collectors and customers”. As I stood in the workshop, I was confronted by Job Number 1 or, perhaps more correctly Job Number 17 after a 60-year tea break, and I was speechless at what I saw.