John Cena Jaguar XJ13-based sports car up for sale
10/04/2024 06:00 PM
The star of the upcoming Matchbox film has put his V12-powered sports car on the market with no reserve.
Pro-wrestler, Hollywood movie star and car enthusiast John Cena has put his replica Jaguar XJ13 sports car up for auction on the US car trading site Bring A Trailer.
Bidding for the sports car, which was bought by Cena – star of the upcoming Matchbox live-action film – in 2022 ends at 7:31 am Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on Saturday 5 October 2024.
Cena's example was built in 2011 by Predator Performance in California, and was converted from left-hand to right-hand drive before the star bought it on the same Bring A Trailer website in late 2022.
It features spaceframe construction with fibreglass and aluminium body panels finished in classic British national green paintwork – although not officially British Racing Green – with a removable roof and plexiglass engine cover.
The shapely lines are finished with staggered five-spoke Rotiform-brand alloy wheels, with taillights from a Jaguar E-Type, known as the Jaguar XK-E in the United States (US).
Power comes from a mid-mounted Jaguar 6.0-litre V12 with fuel-injection with a custom engine management system and a ZF five-speed manual transaxle powering the rear wheels.
There's also cross-drilled disc brake rotors with staggered-piston calipers and adjustable coil-over suspension underneath.
The cockpit sees a pair of racing seats with diamond-stitched buttercream upholstery and black piping, caramel carpet and a custom wood-rimmed steering wheel. While there are traditional white-on-black dials, there's also a central digital display screen.
The car isn't in perfect condition with minor paint blemishes and – while "the five-digit odometer shows 200 miles [322km]" the description adds "intermittent malfunction of the gauges is noted".
With no reserve, bidding for the car – with four days left to run – had reached $US72,500 ($AU104,700) at the time of writing, with a New Zealand built fellow replica having sold in the US in 2019 by Sotheby's and fetching $US478,000 ($AU690,200).
The original XJ13 was developed by Jaguar with the goal of winning the famous Le Mans 24 Hours race in France in 1966.
A set of regulation changes saw its 5.0-litre V12 petrol engine effectively end the project, with cars in the 'prototype' class needing at least 50 examples to have been to run an engine larger than 3.0 litres.
Jaguar had built only a single XJ13 prototype with its quad-cam V12 engine mid-mounted into a monocoque chassis – meaning the body acted also as the frame – enclosed with lightweight aluminium panels.
Further prototypes were never produced, though, with the project abandoned as the company's 'merger' with BMC (British Motor Corporation) took place, pushing the XJ13 down the list of priorities for Jaguar management.
Instead, Ford famously won the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours with an even bigger engine – a NASCAR-based 7.0-litre V8 – having built 87 examples of its GT40 Mark II race car that year in Slough, England, enabling its entry.
The story of the 1966 race was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning 2019 film Ford v Ferrari, with the US car maker potentially making a comeback to the premier class in future.
The XJ13's wind-cheating shape came from designer Malcolm Sayer who also produced Jaguar's C-Type and D-Type racing cars – which shared five Le Mans wins between them in the 1950s – as well as the famous Jaguar E-Type road-going model.
The sole genuine prototype is now housed at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon, Warwickshire, in the United Kingdom – worth around £11 million ($AU22.3 million) according to a 2023 article on British insurance company Hagerty's website by journalist David Lillywhite.
In a twist, John Cena was one of the celebrities who purchased a Ford GT road car in 2017 – offered to chosen buyers by invitation only – but saw legal action from the car maker for a 'breach of contract' when he advertised it for sale several months later.
The wrestler settled with the US car giant to end the dispute in 2018.
The post John Cena Jaguar XJ13-based sports car up for sale appeared first on Drive.
