The last outside-latch E-Type, reborn as a Lightweight-spec racer.

Chassis 850301 is a landmark early E-Type — the 301st built, the last of the first 300 “outside-bonnet-latch” cars and the first to receive factory seatbelt anchors. Dispatched in January 1962 to H. A. Pierpoint (father of saloon champion Roy Pierpoint) and registered WAP 66, it took up club racing in the 1960s, setting a Modified Sports lap record at Brands Hatch in 1968.

Long-term owner Philip Bennett then transformed it into a full Lightweight-specification car: R. S. Panels reskinned it in aluminium — including a genuine period Abbey Panels Lightweight bonnet — while the 3.8-litre XK was rebuilt to D-type specification with dry-sump lubrication, Piper cams and triple Weber 45 DCOEs for over 330 bhp, paired with a Getrag five-speed and D-type peg-drive alloys. It set a 1993 lap record at Willaston on the Isle of Man and won the Birkett Six-Hour relay, later contesting the Rallye des Pyrénées and appearing at The Quail and the Monterey Reunion for the E-Type’s 50th anniversary. It was acquired at Broad Arrow’s Villa d’Este sale in May 2025, and has since competed in the Tour Auto 2026.