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The 1956 Jaguar XKSS was one of a kind

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If I win the lottery or a Genie comes and says, you can have one car, any car you want--I am pretty sure I would say "XK-SS".
 
I know.........its one Wicked ride!!! I'd love to get behind the wheel of this one some day!
 
But 16 only by accident of fate. If there had been no factory fire to destroy the remaining race D-types and tooling, who knows, could have been popular enough to to delay or cause the E-type never to have been built. And if unpopular, perhaps cause Jaguar to reconsider the whole sports car concept in favor of grand touring and sedans, sort of the late 70s come 15 years earlier.
 
If you watch the Jay Leno video embedded in the link, they talk about the plan being to build about 25 XKSS's, I have read a bit about the car, but don't remember seeing this before, but it would make sense if all they were trying to do was make some money of left over D-type bits.
 
glemon said:
If you watch the Jay Leno video embedded in the link, they talk about the plan being to build about 25 XKSS's, I have read a bit about the car, but don't remember seeing this before, but it would make sense if all they were trying to do was make some money of left over D-type bits.
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Yes sir, and its a good thing they did not scrap them!
 
True the intent was to use up remaining D-type parts. But had it proved popular the tooling still existed before the fire and could have been restarted. The market for a road car was going to be different from that for a pure racer that it evolved from. So but for the fire, could have been a different path into and through the 60s.
 
Although it is beginning to be sort of foggy memory, I swear there was an XKSS for sale out of Omaha, NE, in the early 80s, although the XKSS came out after the racing was over, the Strategic Air Command, headed up by General Curtis Lemay, sponsored and held sports car races on the various air force bases until Congress shut them down. I always wondered if the XKSS in Omaha was part of that sports car scene in Omaha from the fifties. Does anybody know if there is a book or ledger that chronicles the ownership history of the 16 XKSS's?
 
As I recall there were a couple (possibly two?) more after the 16 survivors. These were built up using mostly parts spared by the fire. I believe one of those (difficult to put a label on that pedigree) is the one owned by Ralph Lauren. His is a beautiful example - I have come across it twice in recent years - once in Santa Fe and again in the Louvre.

And yes, they had TR3 taillights.
 
Okay - Google found it in an article from R&T:

In fact, there are 18 XKSSs. Two of original D-Types were returned to Jaguar in 1958 to be converted to XKSS specs. One of those, XKD533, is the car in the Ralph Lauren collection. Being shown in Paris is something of a homecoming for XKD533, as it was first delivered in France in 1956.
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