Jaguar E-Type 'Growler' to be built

The Jaguar E-Type Growler

Swedish company Visualtech are planning on building the ‘Growler’, a Jaguar E-Type look-alike based on a 600bhp Jaguar XKR. Price from £420k.

As you can’t have failed to notice, 2011 is the Jaguar E-Type’s 50th anniversary and Jaguar are busy making sure everyone knows it.

From the original Geneva E-Type show car at this year’s Geneva Motor Show on through being an iconic part of this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, the E-Type will be everywhere.

Which may have something to do with the inspiration – and timing – behind Swedish firm Visualtech’s plans to build an E-Type for the 21st century.

The Visualtech E-Type– dubbed the ‘Growler‘ – is a Jaguar XKR under the skin but with a tweaked and fettled Supercharged lump coaxed in to developing something close to 600bhp, which should mean a sub-4 second 0-60mph.

The chassis will be made from carbon fibre with metal spaceframes holding the running gear and a composite body glued on. Which seems like overkill to us, but does probably explain why Visulatech are estimating the cost of the ‘Growler’ at anything from £420k to £850k – depending on how many orders they get.

Rather optimistically, Visualtech are saying they can manage to build up to four cars at a time with a lead time of six months and if the orders are greater than that they can outsource to the likes of Steyr or Valmet.

We love the look of the Growler, but if you want an E-Type lookalike with 21st century performance, why not go off and grab an Eagle E-Type? Even with all their upgrade boxes ticked the price won’t come close to Visualtech’s Growler price.

In fact we wouldn’t mind betting you could get an Eagle E-Type Speedster for a chunk less than the Growler will cost.