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9 May 2025The Eagle has Landed
An updated, classic British motor has become one of the world’s most sought-after supercars
F rom the outside you might think it’s the centre of a smallholding, perhaps where they store the potatoes. Maybe a few chickens will be foraging around the back. The old brick farm buildings encircle a courtyard surrounded by agricultural land, deep in leafy East Sussex. If you arrive around lunchtime you could spot a few employees sitting round the farm pond eating their sandwiches.
Despite this homely, rustic image, things are not always what they seem on the surface. Step inside one of these quaint outbuildings and you’ll find a sophisticated, pristine, air-conditioned engineering environment where highly skilled specialist technicians are working with state-of-the-art equipment to produce cars costing up to a million pounds each.
In that respect, the headquarters of Eagle are like the vehicles produced here. To the uninformed, an Eagle looks like a nicely cleaned-up, 50-year-old E-Type Jaguar. Investigate beneath the surface, however, and you’ll find why BBC Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson once called it ‘the car of the century’.
With a brand new aluminium body and engine, contemporary brakes, suspension and electrics, the Eagle Speedster and Low Drag GT are really modern supercars dressed in the style of a 1960s motoring style icon. The latest, the Low Drag GT, has an exquisitely beguiling body shape, a top speed of 175mph and accelerates from 0-60mph in around four seconds. It costs from £695,000 upwards and has a waiting list.
Back in 1961, when the original Jaguar E-Type was launched into the pre-Beatles world of Elvis and Eisenhower, the price tag was around £2,000. This new Jag was a long, sleek, two-seater sports car that hinted at a sexy, glamorous future. It was half the price of a Ferrari, but faster and arguably more beautiful. One was chosen to be exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art and Enzo Ferrari called it: ‘The most beautiful car ever made’. Over the next 14 years of production at Jaguar’s Coventry factory, the E-Type became a global symbol of British engineering, elegance and excellence.
With a brand new aluminium body and engine, contemporary brakes, suspension and electrics, the Eagle Speedster and Low Drag GT are really modern supercars dressed in the style of a 1960s motoring style icon
Professional car enthusiast Henry Pearman of Eagle E-Types has specialised in buying and selling, repairing and restoring these emblems of Sixties motoring style for the past 30 years. In the early 1990s a customer asked whether he could upgrade a car to modern standards of reliability and safety. Eagle’s team did the enhancements – and they were such a success the Eagle E-Type was born.
Fast forward to 2014; Eagle still sells and restores original E-Types and offers a wide range of upgrades for the classic car. But what has set this small company apart is its range of unique, handmade E-Types.
These are still made from real Jaguar E-Types and everything done to them is strictly within the ‘spirit and character’ of the original car. Nevertheless, Eagle fundamentally transforms the vehicle so it jumps from one category into a completely different one. The ‘donor’ vehicle is an enthusiasts’ classic car; the final product is a millionaire’s supercar.
Buyers can create their own bespoke vehicle, based on an E-Type but with the luxury and reliability of a contemporary car. It could be a comfortable, long-distance GT cruiser or a fire-breathing, high-performance roadster.
Buyers can choose between steel or aluminium bodies, coupés or convertibles, and a vast range of mechanical and luxury options, such as adjustable shock absorbers and a climate control system.
Pearman has sidestepped the sentimentality of dedicated classic car purists who covet totally original specimens. Important parts such as the E-Type’s period gearbox, electrics and brakes have been dumped for modern hyper-efficient components. ‘You wouldn’t live in a beautiful Georgian house and chuck your sewage out the window,’ he says. Pearman’s current view of driving an untouched early E-Type? ‘I’d be frightened to drive up to the village in it.’
In a swoop, Eagle has solved the dilemma of anyone dreaming of classic car ownership. Fifty years ago the E-Type may have been considered way ahead of its time, but auto technology has developed rapidly since.
Like most classic cars, an original E-Type can feel fairly agricultural to drive compared with even the most humble contemporary family car. It is a brave owner that uses a 50-year-old car to commute or take his family on holiday.
In the early 1990s a customer asked whether he could upgrade a car to modern standards of reliability and safety. Eagle’s team did the enhancements – and they were such a success the Eagle E-Type was born
The Eagle cars satisfy the desire for classic design that isn’t going to be out of fashion in a couple of years. At the same time they don’t require any compromises to live with them.
‘Our objective is to keep all that’s fantastic about the E-Type, but just iron out the worries,’ says Pearman. ‘We’re around for the guys that absolutely love the romantic idea of having an old car, but who are petrified at the prospect of actually owning it.’
After 30 years of working with only E-Types, Eagle technicians know where all the potential weak spots are. Even on the most humble restorations, hundreds of hours are spent replacing dated components. On the top-of-the-range bespoke models the changes are profound, involving around 7,000 hours of skilled, hands-on work.
The Low Drag GT, for example, uses Eagle’s own aluminium, 4.7-litre engine and five-speed gearbox within a completely new aluminium body with subtle design tweaks. The use of these aluminium replacements mean an Eagle can weigh as little as a Ford Fiesta, but has far more power than the original model.
The floor is lowered to create more space, the wheelbase widened. The old carburettors are switched for a fuel-injection system; primitive ventilation is now a climate-control air conditioning unit. Handling and grip are helped by bigger wheels wearing modern tyres, more sophisticated suspension and a limited slip differential; high-performance racing brakes modernise the stopping power. It’s faster and handles more predictably, but there’s still the aura of an E-Type with all the direct driver engagement and fun that implies.
Indeed, all the Eagle cars retain some crucial E-Type basics. They have the same visual impact as the original car, with that long bonnet and the stubby rear end. They keep the simple linear dashboard, even if the switches now operate more sophisticated components behind the scenes. Features such as the twin exhaust pipes, simple door trim and fluted leather seats ensure no-one mistakes the car for a 21st-century, carbon-fibre street racer designed on a computer screen.
In fact, the design of the Eagle Speedster’s super-sleek body couldn’t be a more low-tech operation. Technical director Paul Brace explains: ‘We didn’t have anything like clay models. I had an angle-grinder and hacked the donor car’s wheel arches and scoops. With a bit of cutting, bending and bashing I made a mock up. I painted it all dark green with a brush and squinted at it to imagine what it would look like.’ This homespun creation was taken to the aluminium fabricators as the template for the Eagle’s new body. The superb lines of the finished car make you wonder why other manufacturers bother with huge, expensive design departments at all.
Words: Staff
