1978 Aristocat 'XK140 Replica' Roadster

Description

Designed and built by Autotune Ltd in 1983, the Aristocat is a replica of the famous Jaguar XK series of sports cars, built with Jaguar's permission. Autotune goes back to 1969 and has always focused on both race car preparation and particularly, Jaguars. The Aristocat was originally developed for the inaugural 1984 U.K. kit car racing championship and has been in continuous production ever since. It uses original Jaguar XJ6, XJS or XJ12 mechanical and trim components, built into an Autotune built steel spaceframe chassis, though this necessarily means the Aristocat is wider than the Jaguar XK120, XK140 and XK150 models it replicates. The Aristocat spaceframe includes body and bumper supports at either end to allow some crumple-zone effect in an impact. It’s made from 16-gauge 1.5-in square steel, and has passed a number of safety tests, including the TUV Rhineland strength testing back in the 1980s and more recently the strict Australian torsional chassis stiffness tests. It also complies with the current British/EU Individual Vehicle Approval tests. As well as the Aristocat replicas, Autotune also produces a dimensionally exact replica of an XK140 Coupe, again using XJ6 or XJS components on a steel spaceframe chassis, known as the Aristocat Coupe. The various Aristocat replicas are kit cars, available in various stages of completeness to suit the builder’s budget. All are designed to use around 80 per cent of the components of a donor Jaguar. With almost 40 years of continuous production, Autotune has exported its Aristocat to most European countries, plus New Zealand and Scandinavia.