Historic Jaguar E-Type Cunningham Lightweight up for auction

It’s provenance that doesn’t get much better. 1963 Lightweight Jaguar E-type Competition Coupe? Check. Raced by iconic American operation Team Cunningham? Check. Actually raced at Le Mans? Big fat tick. Is it any wonder auctioneers Bonhams expect it to make more than $10 million when it goes under the hammer at Monterey in August?

It’ll be quite the highlight for the auctioneer’s 20^th anniversary sale, as this E-type is one of just 12 Lightweight Jags. They were built for racing and, impressively, Team Cunningham manged to enter 25 percent of the run into the 1963 Le Mans event; this one, alas, only managed eight laps.

More success was found in later events; it was entered into the Road America 500 and Bridgehampton 500, before team boss Briggs Cunningham nabbed it for his own private collection. For years, it was shown at the super-exclusive Cunningham Museum.

Once he sold it, the Lightweight E-type was passed around a veritable who’s who of car collectors, including Lord Bamford, Paul Vestey and Campbell McLaren. As author Richard Holt said, “there are rare, interesting cars, and there are cars that have belonged to rare, interesting people… the Briggs Cunningham Lightweight E-type scores so heavily on both counts that it’s difficult to decide which is more of a star.

“You could make a good argument either way: the ultra-rare racing thoroughbred versus the all-American hero and entrepreneur. But the truth is that thinking about one without the other makes no sense because the Lightweight E-Type would probably never have existed if it hadn’t been for Briggs Swift Cunningham II.”