Building The Legend, a British firm that sells highly
accurate replicas of the Jaguar
XJ13, has developed a bespoke, period-correct V-12 engine that will make
your project car truly concours-worthy.
Called the Tera, the engine will be launched on February 21
at Race Retro in the United Kingdom and will be available in a variety of
configurations, from street setup to race. However due to its handbuilt nature,
availability will be limited.
Its design was inspired by the 5.0-liter, 60-degree V-12
that former Jaguar engineer Claude Baily developed for the XJ13 and matches the
original's double overhead cams. Jaguar's own V-12 that eventually went into
production switched to a simpler single-cam design, so Building The Legend's
design is truly something special. It's also a thing of beauty on its own, and
that's before you even take into account the performance on offer.
Per the spec sheet, the engine can be ordered with a
displacement of either 6.1 or 6.8 liters and, depending on the configuration,
has a safe rev limit of between 8,000 and 8,500 rpm. It also has a
distributor-less design and a compression ratio of 11.7:1. Peak output ranges
up to 650 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque.
There are a handful of companies currently
building replicas of the XJ13, though not all of them have the blessing of
Jaguar like Building the Legend does. The firm even had guidance from some of
the surviving XJ13 team. Incidentally, Building the Legend's first XJ13 replica
unveiled in 2016 was powered by one of the three prototype V-12s that Jaguar
developed as part of the XJ13 program.
For readers unfamiliar with the XJ13, it was developed in
the 1960s as a 24 Hours of Le Mans contender. However regulation changes in
1968 meant the car, of which just one was built, never hit the track in 1969 as
intended. It crashed in 1971 during some testing but thankfully was fully
restored following the incident.
by Viknesh Vijayenthiran
http://www.boscheuropean.com
No comments:
Post a Comment