(Photos by Joe Grippo) – Yesterday we told you the twisted tale of the Simeone Museum’s Shelby Daytona Coupe, which is the first one ever built and has had some amazing racing and ownership history along the way. This 1956 Jaguar D-type is a super interesting car and thankfully it carries none of the ownership derived baggage that the Shelby did. The Jaguar D-Type was made from 1954-1957 and we don’t need to tell you that it was a purpose built factory race car. What we can tell you is that the car advanced design and engineering practices in racing with the use of a monocoque style chassis and its aerodynamic styling (gaping open cockpit notwithstanding). The car was very successful all over the world, winning LeMans in 1955, 1956, and 1957. After 1957 Jaguar stepped away from racing for a short time. About 90 of these cars were produced over the three years they were offered with the last of them being sent to America with more street equipment on them and sold as XKSS models. Steve McQueen had one of those, FYI.

It is tough to overstate how ground breaking this car was when people saw it in the middle 1950s. Essentially what Jaguar had done was to combine the best of airplane and automotive design together. The “tub” of the car was similar to how fighter planes of the era were being built and it was both very rigid and very light as compared to other designs of the era. On the aero front, some of the guys who worked designing this were also former airplane engineers so reducing drag and making considerations about how to manage the air under the car all played into this baby having a screaming top speed of over 170mph when Ferraris were barely able to touch 160. Dry sump oiling was also developed on this car as well so that engineers could get the engine lower in the chassis to make the body slide through the air better.

The engine that powered these cars as the venerable twin overhead cam inline six that Jag used and refined for much of its glory years. It made 250hp at peak in the D-Type and displacing 3.4L (it would be made larger later on) it had three Weber cabs, 9:1 compression, and a scream that is still legendary to gearheads the world over. Mic Jaggar was once in the bidding for this very car before Mr Simeone came to own it.

The racing history on this particular model is domestic, having been raced at places like Watkins Glen, Sebring, St. Louis, and at the Wisconsin GP in 1957. The car was consistently a top finisher and seems to have lived a nice life after its competition years were over. The machine was in spectacular form at the Demo day. Joe Grippo caught it tooling around and making those great noises in the spacious lot of the museum. Scroll down to see details and overall photos of this amazing example of 1950s British engineering.

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS OF THIS 1956 JAGUAR D-TYPE AT THE SIMEONE MUSEUM