Cut above the rest

This significantly historic competition E-Type, CUT 8 will forever be associated with the great racing privateer Dick Protheroe, who zealously campaigned a series of CUT-plated modified Jaguars to great effect in period. One of the very select group of famous competition E-Types, CUT 8 is a crowd favourite at Goodwood and imbued with the history of a racing era that makes her very special indeed.

Originally a dark green FHC race prepared for BRDC life member Ed Nelson in 1965-66, it was registered 105 ENX and raced in ’66 at events as far afield as the Nürburgring and Mugello. It was then sold to Rosemary Protheroe and designated CUT 8 as a tribute to her late husband Dick Protheroe, who tragically paid the ultimate price aboard a 330P Ferrari at Oulton Park in 1966. 

Wearing the distinctive livery of grey and French racing blue (adopted as Protheroe’s racing colour from his Type 37 Bugatti), the Jaguars were modified and race prepared at Protheroe’s Leicestershire garage. Successively wearing the same famous CUT 7 registration, the first three E-Types were extensively campaigned at top-drawer events across Britain and Europe in one of the ultimate expressions of the amateur racing ideal.

A racer herself, Rosemary met Dick at a race meeting in her XK and upon his passing became Managing Director. She resolved to go racing again, building CUT 8 with her late husband’s team including mechanic Victor Cornelius. Resprayed in the Protheroe livery, the E-Type gained a dry-sump 4.2 with wide-angle head and Webers, and was re-registered CUT 8. Rhoddy Harvey Bailey and Ed Nelson campaigned her for Rosemary Protheroe for two seasons before being sold in 1968.

More recently CUT 8 has become one of the most well-known historic competition E-Types and regularly appeared in historic racing, most notably the Goodwood Revival.

This iconic 1962 jaguar E-Type is currently available from Fiskens in London. Photos © Fiskens