Jaguar D-Type & E-Type, North Wales, photo by James Lipman. The D-Type car was produced to extend and deepen the success of the C-Type — and it immedi­ately performed well.

In its first appearance at Le Mans in 1954, the Jaguar team’s cars suffered, appar­ently, from sand in their fuel. Once this problem had been rectified, however, this car (No 14, driven by Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt) immedi­ately reestab­lished itself. Eventually it finished less than one lap down on the winning Ferrari.