XKE or E-Type

The Jaguar XKE and the Jaguar E-Type are the same car. That much is not in dispute anywhere. What is worth getting right is where the American name came from, how official it was, and which differences between an American car and a home market car are real.

What the works called it

The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust's own reference guide to the model, document RG001F, uses Jaguar E-type throughout, with a hyphen and a lower case t. Its four designations are Series 1 3.8 Litre, Series 1 4.2 Litre, Series 2 4.2 Litre and Series 3 V12. No form of XK-E or XKE appears anywhere in it.

That is the strongest single piece of negative evidence on the question. The marque's own heritage body, publishing a guide whose entire purpose is correct identification, does not use the American name at all.

The Trust's catalogue of Jaguar press releases from 1961 to 1975 tells the same story. The entries use E-type consistently, including one from 8 December 1961 describing cars being loaded onto transporters for the United States. Factory parts catalogues use E-Type or E-type in every title, including the one covering the 1968 federalised car. And Jaguar Land Rover's own press release for the car's sixtieth anniversary in 2021, issued for the American market, uses E-type throughout and never mentions XKE.

What Jaguar's American operation called it

And yet XK-E is Jaguar's, not the public's. It appears on the covers of Jaguar's own United States sales literature across roughly a decade.

• 1962, a four page folder titled XKE Coupe
• 1963, the American range brochure, covering the XK-E Coupe and Roadster alongside the 3.8 and the Mark X
• 1966, The Jaguar 4.2 XKE Roadster and Coupe, and separately a single sheet flyer, Jaguar 4.2 XK-E Coupe and Roadster, a different breed of cat
• 1967, a brochure titled Jaguar 4.2 XK-E Coupe, Roadster and 2+2 Family Coupe, which includes the line the XK-E 2+2 thus becomes the Jaguar family coupe
• 1967 to 1968, a twenty page brochure titled simply Jaguar XKE
• 1971, a postcard titled Jaguar XKE Convertible

For comparison, the British and general market literature of the same years never uses it: the 1961 launch brochure is Jaguar E-Type, the 1966 2+2 brochure is The New 4.2 Litre Jaguar 'E' Type 2 + 2, and the 1968 Series 2 folder is Jaguar E-Type Range Series 2.

A name printed on the cover of a factory issued twenty page brochure is not a nickname. It was Jaguar's marketing designation for the car in the United States.

Hyphen or no hyphen

Both, and Jaguar itself was inconsistent. XKE without a hyphen appears on the 1962 folder, the 1966 roadster and coupe brochure, the 1967 to 1968 twenty page brochure and the 1971 postcard. XK-E with a hyphen appears on the 1963 range brochure, the 1966 flyer and the 1967 family coupe brochure. The 1966 model year has both forms in circulation at once. Neither can be called correct.

The American name also seems to have been retired before the car was. Jaguar's United States literature for the Series 3 leads on the V12 rather than the XK-E: a 1971 piece titled Jaguar V12, The Ultimate Cat, and a 1973 brochure headed Jaguar V-12. The archive offers that as an inference from the catalogued literature rather than an established fact.

E-type, E-Type, or 'E' Type

Three positions are documented and they do not agree, so the archive states all three rather than pretending there is a settled answer.

• E-type, with a lower case t, is what the Heritage Trust uses, what its press release catalogue uses, and what Jaguar itself used in 2021.
• 'E' Type, with the letter in quotation marks, is recorded by the Jaguar Clubs of North America Series 1 judging guide as the official Jaguar works designated name. The 1966 brochure title supports it for that period.
• E-Type, with a capital T, is what that same judging guide then adopts as common usage, what most brochures from 1968 onward use, and what almost all modern writing uses, including this archive.

The other forms in use

E-Type is the form Jaguar used in Britain and the form this archive uses throughout. XK-E and XKE are the North American marketing forms documented above. They follow the written pattern of XK120, XK140 and XK150, although no Jaguar document explaining why either was chosen has been found.

E Type without the hyphen, etype unspaced and Type E are all in common use. None is wrong in any meaningful sense. They are simply ways in which people write and search for the car. In everyday British speech, E-Type Jag is also readily understood.

None of these names distinguishes one car from another. A car advertised as an XKE, an E Type or an etype is still the same car. The name tells you about the seller's market and habits, not the car's specification.

Why the American name

The explanation usually given is continuity. American buyers knew the XK120, XK140 and XK150, and did not know the C-type and D-type racing cars from which the E in E-type follows. It is repeated by a marque club and asserted on forums, and it is entirely plausible.

No Jaguar document stating it has been found. The archive searched the Heritage Trust reference guide, the Trust's press release catalogue, the Jaguar and Jaguar Land Rover newsrooms and the catalogued sales literature, and found nothing on the origin of either name. It is recorded here as not established.

What the American cars actually differ in

This is the substance behind the name, and it is worth separating from the vocabulary question. Through the whole of the Series 1 proper, the differences are lighting and instruments, not mechanical specification.

• Headlamps. All American and Canadian cars had sealed beam units, where right hand drive cars had Lucas tri-bar lamps. The American car had sealed beams behind the glass covers from the start, which is the correct baseline for the cover question below.
• Lenses. American cars have clear indicator lenses at the front and red on red tail lamps at the rear. Other export cars have amber indicators and amber on red tail lamps.
• Carburettors. No difference at all through the Series 1. Every Series 1 E-Type had three SU HD8 carburettors.
• Speedometer in miles per hour.

The mechanical divergence begins on 15 August 1967, and the Jaguar Clubs of North America record the changeover precisely: for North America only, the beginning of federalised changes, toggle switches changing to rocker switches, starting at chassis 1E15980 for the open two seater, 1E34583 for the coupe and 1E77709 for the 2+2. From the 1968 model year American cars have two Zenith Stromberg carburettors in place of three SUs, and a distributor without vacuum advance.

Side marker lamps arrive later than most accounts say. They were not required on American passenger cars before 1 January 1969, four alternative ways of complying were permitted through 1969, and the full amber front and red rear lamp requirement applied only after 1 January 1970. The E-Type gained them with the Series 2 for the 1969 model year, not with the 1968 cars.

The headlight covers, and why the usual explanation fails

This is the most repeated claim about the American car: that United States federal law banned headlight covers, and that is why they went. It is at best half right, and the part that fails is easy to check.

There is a genuine federal prohibition. SAE J580 prohibits covers over sealed beam headlamps on four wheeled vehicles, it is incorporated by reference into Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, and the regulator has stated the prohibition and its reason in interpretation letters: the degradation in light output that can result from condensation under unsealed glass covers. FMVSS 108 took effect on 1 January 1968.

But Jaguar deleted the covers from January 1967, a full year before that standard was in force. And the change was not confined to American cars. The Series 1 judging guide cites factory Service Data Bulletin P.198 of January 1968 recording the open headlamp bonnet on right hand drive cars, and build records reported on the forums show open headlights on both right and left hand drive cars from the same date in January 1967.

A United States federal rule cannot explain a change to a right hand drive home market car. Whatever moved Jaguar, it was not FMVSS 108, because Jaguar moved first and moved everywhere.

There is a documented non regulatory motive. The covers reduced light output, which is not in dispute, and one account notes the deletion was not entirely a bad thing given their effect on headlight range. A state law version also circulates, that the covers were not technically legal in some American states at the time, which is plausible because headlamp regulation was a state matter before 1968, but no state statute has been identified. And the version repeated in the club literature is a different claim again, about headlamp mounting height rather than covers, which is separately unverified.

The archive should also record a limit on its own evidence. The regulator's statements that J580 prohibits covers date from 1978 and 1983, and the regulation text the archive could obtain incorporates J580 at its 1986 revision. Whether that prohibition was in the version of FMVSS 108 effective on 1 January 1968 has not been established.

The honest summary is this. Jaguar deleted the covers in January 1967, before any American federal lighting standard was in force, and the change reached right hand drive cars too. A federal prohibition does exist and would have applied to American cars from 1968 at the latest. But Jaguar was ahead of it, no Jaguar document giving a reason has been found, and the Americans banned them is not a complete explanation of what Jaguar actually did.

One further point worth noting: the Jaguar Clubs of North America do not treat the headlamps as the federalisation marker at all. Their Series 1 guide states that the distinguishing features of the federalised car are the Stromberg carburettors and the rocker switches, not the headlamps.

Other things said about the American cars

• That they were detuned and are slower. There is a real difference from the 1968 model year: two carburettors instead of three, no vacuum advance, and progressively more emission equipment. Quoted output falls from 265bhp to 246bhp, and both of those are SAE gross figures, so that is a genuine like for like comparison rather than an artefact of two measuring standards. What the gross figures do not tell you is what either engine made installed in a car, and the one net figure located for the American 4.2, 171bhp, is single sourced. The specifications page sets out the standards in full.
• That they are worth less. Not established as a general rule. Hagerty's market analysis describes the E-Type's value recovery as an American phenomenon, with British values steady or declining over the same period, and notes there are not enough right hand drive cars to go round. American provenance is also flagged as a positive on rust grounds for cars from dry states. What does carry a premium is specification, covered headlamps and toggle switches, and American cars from 1961 to 1966 have both.
• That Series 1.5 is a factory designation. It is not. The Jaguar Clubs of North America describe it as a collector convention phased in through 1968 as older parts ran out, and say plainly that the classification lacks official Jaguar documentation. That club also uses Series 1.25 for the 1967 open headlight cars, a distinction almost nobody outside it uses.
• That the winged knock off spinner was banned by a named American law. The 1968 car does have earless three lobe knock offs in place of the winged spinner, and a federal standard did prohibit wheel nuts, discs and hub caps incorporating winged projections. But the archive has not established that standard's original effective date, and has found no Jaguar document citing it. The connection is very likely and is stated as likely, not as documented.

What is the same car

An XK-E is an E-Type. The name is the difference. The car is not.

• Jaguar's heritage body recognises four designations across the whole run, and there is no American model in Jaguar's taxonomy.
• The monocoque centre section, the tubular front subframe and the independent rear suspension unit are common to all cars.
• American cars sit inside the same left hand drive chassis ranges as other export cars, in the same series prefixes. The only American specific element is the model year letter, UC, UD or UE, on Series 3 cars from 1972.
• The same XK six in 3.8 and 4.2 form, and the same 5.3 litre V12. Where American cars differ it is in induction and emission equipment bolted to the same engine, not a different engine.
• The same three body styles to the same dimensions, and the same transmissions.
• No American car carries an XK-E or XKE badge. The rear script is the same as any other E-Type.

The differences that do exist are, in every documented case, market specification changes made to satisfy American lighting, occupant protection, bumper and emissions rules. They are the same class of change that any imported car of the period went through.

What the archive has not established

• The first use of XK-E in Jaguar literature. The earliest item the archive has traced is the 1962 XKE Coupe folder, and a first hand forum account describes a 1961 American range brochure using XK-E, but that is a single uncorroborated report.
• Any Jaguar document explaining the origin of either name.
• Whether the SAE J580 cover prohibition was in the version of FMVSS 108 effective on 1 January 1968.
• Jaguar's actual reason for deleting the headlamp covers in January 1967.
• The original effective date of the federal standard prohibiting winged spinners.
• Whether the Heritage Trust's press release catalogue reflects the wording of the original releases or the Trust's own house style, since those are archivist written descriptions rather than transcriptions.

Common questions