Solved - NEH 901: Costin Jaguar - 1959 (Originally based on a 1939 ERA)

[Carnut]

What's this and what was it based on, for 1 point:

[Carnut]

Experts?

[barrett]

Tojeiro?

[Joao Gois]

That has to be Jaguar-based...

[Carnut]

Tojeiro?

No.

That has to be Jaguar-based...

Not Jaguar-based but there is some Jaguar in there..

[Joao Gois]

At least the front hood and the engine are... and it looks like an XK engine, given the exhaust on the left...

[Carnut]

At least the front hood and the engine are... and it looks like an XK engine, given the exhaust on the left...

Yes, it's a Jaguar engine!
Both nothing else is..

[Carnut]

At least the front hood and the engine are... and it looks like an XK engine, given the exhaust on the left...

Don't think the bonnet (front hood!) is E-Type although the rear part of it is very similar.
Here's a front view:

[D-type]

1956 Costin Jaguar

[D-type]

Or is it 1959?  The auction house advertising it say different things in different advetisments

[Carnut]

1956 Costin Jaguar

Yes, it is indeed a (the?) Costin Jaguar.
But that only answers half the question, so it's locked for you to come up with other half and earn that coveted point!

[D-type]

It's a complicated tale.

In 1939 ERA produced the 1500 cc E-type single seater vouturette.  There were two chassis, numbered GP1 and GP2 so ERA Ltd were clearly planning ahead for an anticipated reduction in engine size for grand prix racing

Postwar the grand prix formula changed and the E-Type became eligible for grands prix.  It wasn't very successful.

So GP2 was fitted with a C-type Jaguar engine and converted into a cycle winged one-and-a-half seater sports car.

In about 1955 GP2 was rebodied by Williams & Pritchard with a Frank Costin designed coupe body.

It was later sold to the owner of GP1 who removed the body and Jaguar engine and restored GP2 as an E-Type ERA.  So presumably there are no ERA bits in  the car.

Several years later the body was converted to a roadster and was fitted to a Jaguar XK150 chassis.

It apparently has a 3442cc engine although the XK150 had a 3781cc motor 

... or so an auctioneer's website says.  

So this good looking mongrel is a Jaguar XK150 fitted with a coupe body designed by Frank Costin for fitting to an ERA chassis which has been converted to a roadster.

It was recently advertised as a "Costin Jaguar" but a more accurate description would be "Jaguar XK150 with body by Williams & Pritchard" or "Jaguar XK150 with body designed by Frank Costin" but clearly it wouldn't sell.

[Carnut]

And that sums it up nicely!

[Allan L]

As there is not anything 1939 or ERA in it now, I think the thread title is a bit optimistic - unless you're a house agent or an auctioneer - and even RM Auctions which offered it for sale recently just called it "1959 Costin Jaguar".
Inevitably I've seen it called a Lister somewhere, which of course it is not.

[Carnut]

As there is not anything 1939 or ERA in it now, I think the thread title is a bit optimistic - unless you're a house agent or an auctioneer - and even RM Auctions which offered it for sale recently just called it "1959 Costin Jaguar".
Inevitably I've seen it called a Lister somewhere, which of course it is not.

Yes, so much truth gets lost in the annals of history, especially where salespeople and auctioneers are involved.

But a lot of the history was in their brochure and it seemed to me like it still had an ERA chassis (although D-Type has said otherwise) and rear transmission, but I may have misread it or that might simply be wrong.  If it's not an ERA chassis is it a Jaguar one?

[Allan L]

Since GP2 exists as restored by Gordon Chapman (alongside GP1 which he already owned) and has been raced I think there is no ERA chassis there.
RM auctions, when they had the thing for sale recently, said it is on a Jaguar XK150 chassis (T825023DN) and it's got the 3442cc engine that only very early XK150s had rather than the 3781cc of  most of them. That might even be the C-type motor it had when it had the ERA chassis as they quoted 250 b.h.p. but it could just be the XK150S motor.

[D-type]

The information I posted came mainly from the RM Auctions site.  Others had cloned it but otherwise there is very little other information on the web.
 
As Williams and Pritchard built bodies for Lister: both "knobblies" and the Costin Lister Jaguars, confusion is inevitable.

As to the ERA connection, I think that although GP1 raced in 1939, GP2 wasn't completed until 1946 or 1947 (Allan can you confirm that?).  I agree with Allan that when Gordon Chapman restored the car as GP2 he would have used every ERA component he could and there would have been no remaining bits of ERA in the discarded body which later found its way onto an XK150 chassis to make the car featured here.

[Allan L]

Duncan:
Martin Chapman posts in the other place, so we could just ask him sometime.

Carnut:
I think the title of this now reflects the strange history of this vehicle well enough for under ten words!