How many E-Types were built

The short answer

Roughly 72,500 E-Types were built between March 1961 and June 1974. That figure is an approximation, and it is the most defensible thing this archive can say. Two of the most widely quoted published breakdowns arrive at almost exactly that total by different routes, which is reassuring, while disagreeing quite sharply about how the cars divide between the series. Anyone quoting a precise total to the last unit is quoting one source and not telling you which.

The two breakdowns, side by side

The first is the per-body-style table reproduced in the Wikipedia article on the E-Type, which is the version most often copied elsewhere on the internet.

The second set is attributed to the motoring historian Graham Robson, also via the same Wikipedia article, and divides the cars differently: 15,490 3.8s, 17,320 4.2s and 10,930 2+2s for the Series 1 period, 13,490 Series 2 cars of all types, and 15,290 Series 3 cars. Those add to 72,520, which is within a handful of cars of the other total.

Why the totals differ

The disagreement is mostly about categories, not about cars. Four causes account for nearly all of it.

• Series 1.5 is not a factory category. As set out on the series identification page, Jaguar's records treat the 1968 model year interim cars as late Series 1 4.2 production. Any table with a Series 1.5 row is using a collector taxonomy, so its Series 1 4.2 figure is necessarily lower than a table that does not split them out.
• The 2+2 is sometimes a body style and sometimes a model. Robson's figures treat the 2+2 as its own line running across the Series 1 period, while the per-body-style table spreads the same cars across the 4.2 and 1.5 rows. That single choice moves nearly eleven thousand cars.
• Model year and calendar year do not agree. The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust's own research guide shows Series 1 4.2 production ending in July 1968 and Series 2 beginning in August 1968, and separately notes that some late cars built to United States specification and designated 1971 model year carry a 2R chassis prefix from as early as April and May 1970. Counting by model year and counting by build date give different answers at every boundary.
• Chassis numbers are not a headcount. Right-hand drive and left-hand drive cars used separate number blocks, and sequences were not always issued in strict build order. Adding up ranges produces a figure that is close but not exact, which is part of why enthusiast-compiled totals and factory-derived totals never quite land in the same place.

How many are left

There is no reliable figure for this, anywhere, and it is worth being blunt about why. No registration authority tracks E-Types globally, cars move between countries, cars are broken for parts, and a meaningful number of shells have been rebuilt to the point where what counts as the original car becomes a question of opinion rather than record.

The nearest thing to useful evidence is xkedata.com, the enthusiast-built register that has been recording individual E-Types with photographs and chassis data for many years. Its running count of cars tracked is in the tens of thousands. That is a count of cars recorded by the people who use the register, not a survey of the world's surviving cars, and it should not be turned into a survival percentage.

Finding the numbers for one particular car

This page is about totals. For an individual car, the two places to go are the register and the archive. Use xkedata.com to look up a chassis or engine number and see what is already known about that car. Order a Heritage Certificate from the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, which holds the original production records for every SS and Jaguar vehicle built since 1931 and will confirm a car's original specification and despatch details. This archive links to both because they hold the data. It does not copy them.

Common questions