"This wonderful recreation of a Jaguar XK120C or C-Type is one of Jaguar's most beautiful and all-time great competition Le Mans winning sports cars of the 1950s. Designed purely to win one race - the 1951 Le Mans 24 Hours. It not only won, but set a new lap record in the process. The 1952 Le Mans proved unsuccessful for Jaguar with all three cars entered failing to finish, however, in the 1953 race, the C-Type recorded 1st, 2nd, 4th and 9th positions being the first motor car with a recorded average of 100mph at Le Mans.
This Classic English Racing Automobiles (CERA) recreation of the Le Mans winning C-Type was completed in 1996. Unlike many alternative C-Type replicas, this CERA closely follows the Jaguars design and features a tubular steel spaceframe chassis, hand-formed aluminium bodywork and driven by the classic Jaguar XK unit of 3.4 litres capacity. The CERA build sheet states that the car was built using a Jaguar 3.4 Mk. II engine, a four-speed synchromesh gearbox (XJ6 with overdrive), 33:1 axle ratio (live Salisbury unit) and finished in Connaught Green with green leather trim and Mille Miglia screen. Triple Weber 45 DCOE carburettors supply the fuel; just as the 1953 Le Mans C-Types. The build sheet was signed off by John Gregson in June 1996 and registered in August 1998 as a Classic ERAXK120C.
The previous owner, an aerospace engineer, owned 1289 DK from August 1998 until he sold it in 2015 and, in this period, it only covered approximately 5,000 miles. During his ownership he kept records of any work carried out with any invoices filed and a detailed maintenance sheet produced so that nothing was overlooked. Since June 2015, the car has been in a private collection and on display with very little use. 1289 DK certainly has the look of an original, especially in the frontal area where so many others get wrong. The car sits on wire wheels and compliments the car's patina that exudes an air of originality that cannot be simply replicated but has been achieved over a period of time. This CERA is supplied with a V5 registration document which has been listed under make CLASSIC ERAXK120C. With only 53 original Jaguar C-Types built and their prices reaching to the millions, this gorgeous aluminium recreation makes absolute sense especially in view of its low estimate."