D-Type Longnose Shreds Goodwood Road Course
D-Type has iconic Le Mans-winning heritage. Though now worth millions, this one still struts its stuff on track at Goodwood.
Seeing old racecars worth millions of dollars on track scares some people. However, there is nothing we like to see more. Racing cars are built to race, and them doing so is much more honorary of their history then allowing them to sit in a museum. Even worse is for them to go to a private collector where they’ll be taken away from public view for an indefinite amount of time. They deserve to be on track.
In a recent Goodwood youtube video, you get to witness exactly that. Gary Pearson pushes his Jaguar D-type Longnose to its limits around the road course, and it is quite a sight to behold. The D-type was explicitly designed to win Le Mans, and it did in 1955, 1956 and 1957. It’s easy to see how the D-type could compete as you watch the go-kart-like handling. The screaming inline-six sound blazing past the cameras is a sweet mechanical symphony. Pearson whips it around corner after corner, and the tail got a little slippery from time to time. Like watching something out of a time capsule, you’re watching history reborn in front of you.
What adds to the excitement is knowing that this very chassis raced at Le Mans in 1955. However, it is not entirely original in its current state. Pearson bought a lot of Jaguar parts and chassis from a single owner and built himself his dream machine. He began with chassis number 506 and built from their cache of spare engines, subframes, and body parts to construct the car you see today. Goodwood also has a video outlining the history of this car, which is definitely worth a watch. Pearson races the car at Goodwood a few times a year, and even partakes in the Le Mans classic with a stacked lineup of other classic racing cars.
We are very thankful for Pearson and others like him for keeping these types of cars in the public eye. We have to enjoy them while we can, and more importantly, we have to keep their history and heritage alive and well.