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Watch four hours of fantastic machinery at Le Mans Classic 2016

The 24 Hours of Le Mans came and went, but it wasn't the end of the automotive activities at Circuit de la Sarthe. This past weekend, the venerable racetrack was host to the 2016 Le Mans Classic, in which seven decades of vintage racecars once again competed for glory. The event started with qualifying on Friday, July 8, and racing on the following Saturday and Sunday. Six "grids" of cars each included a different historic racing era, including the early days from 1923 to 1939, as well as that famous period from 1966 to 1971 that featured the all-conquering Ford GT40. The wide range of eligibility also permitted some unusual machines to show up, such as a 1950 Cadillac Series 61 and a 1974 Dodge Charger. This year also marked the debut of the Group C class for more recent Le Mans racers from 1982 to 1993. The 1991 Le Mans-winning Mazda 787B was not present, but one of the Peugeot 905 race cars that gave the marque a remarkable 1-2-3 finish at the 1993 Le Mans came back for the event. The Le Mans Classic also featured the Jaguar Classic Challenge just for cars made by the feline automaker, and the race attracted a bit of human star power. Chris Harris of Top Gear participated in the marque-specific race while behind the wheel of a new continuation Lightweight E-Type. And although the event happened over the weekend, you can catch most of the action via the recorded live stream above. It features a full four hours of vintage racing with commentary in both French and English. It's a great chance to see one of the best combinations of classic cars and historic venues out there. Related Video: Related Gallery Jaguar Continuation Lightweight E-Type View 46 Photos Image Credit: Le Mans Classic Jaguar Automotive History Classics Videos France chris harris vintage racing le mans classic circuit de la sarthe

The 200-mph Jaguar F-Type SVR is coming to Geneva

Jaguar has good news for us: The new F-Type SVR will make its grand debut at March's Geneva Motor Show. Following up on leaked stats from last week, Jag confirms the hardtop F-Type SVR will be capable of hitting 200 miles per hour. The British brand doesn't go much further in confirming other details from last week's report, though. So even though the top end's extra 14 mph has to come from somewhere, we still can't be certain it'll be thanks to a reported 567 horsepower or 516 pound-feet of torque. Jag also won't yet confirm the reported claim of a 3.7-second sprint to 62 mph. What the company is saying, though, is that its first SVR-badged model will be "lighter, faster, and more powerful." JLR's Special Operations boss, John Edwards, calls the new SVR an "all-weather supercar." That lends credence to initial reports that the hottest F-Type will send its power to all four wheels. While the F-Type SVR will hit the Geneva stage on March 1, we won't be waiting that long for all the details – Jaguar will release a complete array of images and details on February 17. We'll have more then. 200MPH JAGUAR F-TYPE SVR TO MAKE GLOBAL DEBUT AT 2016 GENEVA MOTOR SHOW (MAHWAH, N.J.) – January 26, 2016 - The new 2017 Jaguar F-TYPE SVR will make its global debut at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show on March 1, 2016 and will go on sale in summer 2016. Capable of accelerating to 200mph, the new F-TYPE SVR is the first Jaguar to wear the SVR badge and is developed to exploit the two-seat aluminum sports car's full potential while retaining its day-to-day usability. Lighter, faster and more powerful, the new F-TYPE SVR takes performance, dynamics and driver involvement to a new level yet retains the comfort and duality of character inherent to all Jaguar cars. "The new F-TYPE SVR is the first series production Jaguar car to be developed by Special Vehicle Operations and benefits from everything we know about precision engineering, performance and design," said John Edwards, Managing Director, Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations. "The result is a 200mph, all-weather supercar that you can drive every day – we even made a Convertible version so that enthusiasts can revel in the sound from the new titanium exhaust system." The new F-TYPE SVR will join the 2017 Model Year F-TYPE Coupe and Convertible range comprising of the F-TYPE, F-TYPE Premium, F-TYPE S, F-TYPE British Design Edition and F-TYPE R.

The Jaguar XKSS, famed ride of King of Cool, is new again

You might remember earlier this year, when we told you Jaguar had confirmed that it would follow up the limited-run of continuation E-Types – completely new, built from scratch classics – with a new run of the impossibly cool XKSS. Those folks in Coventry weren't pulling our leg, because we're here in LA and the brand new XKSS is here, too. Actually, they're 60 years late. If you remember the story we told you when Jaguar said it'd be building these things, there were originally to be 25 cars in total. 16 were built, and the other nine were destroyed in a fire at the Browns Lane factory. Thus, nine original XKSS cars have been missing, and the nine XKSSs that Jaguar will build for a cool GBP1 million each will round out the initial production run. If you're not familiar with the XKSS, here's a little background. Jaguar won Le Mans three times in a row in a factory racer known as the D-Type. After withdrawing factory support in 1956, some privateers continued on with the car, but Jaguar didn't. That left several D-Types sitting about Browns Lane in various degrees of completion. Sir William Lyons had them converted to road spec, which involved adding such niceties as a windshield and passenger door, but otherwise they were not far removed from the Le Man-winning cars they were based on. That meant that they were, to put it mildly, a lot of car for the street. The kind of person an XKSS appealed to was stylish and adventurous, and someone who craved speed. Someone like Steve McQueen, perhaps. His old XKSS is sitting in the Petersen Museum in LA, which not-coincidentally is where Jaguar assembled us to see the wraps pulled off the new one. The "new" XKSSs are generally faithful to the original design, with the bodies hand-formed off bucks that were themselves created off an original XKSS. The body is made out of exotic magnesium, an extremely lightweight metal which is often misunderstood to be extremely flammable. It is, but much more so when it's in little pieces, like shavings; formed into a car body, it's not quite the incendiary device you might think it'd be. Even the processes to form the chassis is the same, such as the bronze welding technique used to bond its tubing. A few concessions to modern safety are fitted, however. There's a fuel cell, partly due to the additional safety it provides but also to better resist the harrowing effects of modern ethanol blend fuel.