1988 Jaguar Xj6 Base Sedan 4-door 3.6l on 2040-cars

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Formula E is on track financially, with NYC race coming up

LONDON - Formula E could be breaking even already were it not investing for the future, chief executive Alejandro Agag said on Monday after the electric motor racing series reported continuing losses in its latest annual accounts. Accounts filed at Companies House showed Formula E Operations Ltd reduced its operating loss to 33.7 million euros ($38.32 million) at end-July 2016, a period covering its second season, from a previous 62.7 million. Net liabilities rose to 107.2 million euros from 72.1 million, while total revenues reached 56.6 million from a previous 19.7 million. "Everything is going according to plan," Agag, whose city-based series will be racing in New York for the first time on July 15 and 16, told Reuters in an interview at his London offices. "Actually we are doing incredibly well financially according to our plan. "We could have broken even this year but we decided to invest more in marketing and promotion. We decided to add races like the one in New York, which is in year one a race which is costing, we have significant capital expenditure." "It's really up to us when we want to go to break even or not. We could be in break-even now, we could be in break-even next season but we may decide to invest more in marketing and promotion." Agag said the shareholders, including John Malone's Liberty Global and Discovery Communications, were supportive of the strategy and the series had attracted more investors, sponsors and car manufacturers. The New York races will be held in Brooklyn's Red hook neighborhood, with lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop with technology partner Qualcomm securing the naming rights. MANUFACTURER INTEREST Agag, whose series plays down competition with Liberty Media-owned Formula One, said more carmakers were set to join a series increasingly aligned with their commercial focus. "I think Formula E has become the preferred destination for manufacturers and there are a few reasons for that," said the Spaniard. "Obviously, one is that it is electric and manufacturers are more and more focusing on electric cars...and we are the only platform really to help them promote that technology and those types of cars. "And second, because of the cost. The cost of the team in Formula E is very moderate." Whereas top Formula One teams can burn through $300 million a year, as can the likes of Toyota in the World Endurance Championship, the budgets of successful Formula E teams are between 10 and 15 million.

Jaguar will build 9 XKSS continuation cars at $1.4m each

The Jaguar D-Type was, for its time, a cutting-edge race car. It was also a car that could, theoretically, drive from Jaguar's Browns Lane factory to the race in France and back. This was an era in which top-tier race cars weren't all that different from their road-going counterparts. You couldn't really do the same in an Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro, now could you? The XKSS was a D-Type with the barest nod to road-going conveniences, like proper wind protection. With some unsold D-Type racers cluttering up the shop after three successive Le Mans wins, Jaguar converted 16 into XKSS spec, and had more in the works. It wasn't a comprehensive transformation, really. A windshield and a passenger door were added; a cabin partition and the striking fin behind the driver were removed. Otherwise, it wasn't much different than the all-conquering Le Mans-winners. And then tragedy struck. A fire destroyed nine of the cars, and the company never picked up where it left off after the mess was cleaned up. Hence Jaguar aficionados, and the company itself, keenly felt the absence of the "lost" cars. After the success of the continuation E-Type lightweights built by the Jaguar Classic division of Special Operations, the company will finish the run. Nine cars will be hand-crafted for a select group of customers and collectors, much as the company did for the lightweights. Jaguar expects the cars to fetch more than $1.5 million each. Considering the mystique of these "lost" cars, and the fact that Steve McQueen is heavily associated with the XKSS, they may trade hands for considerably more after the initial owners part with them. Jaguar expects to start delivering the continuation XKSS cars early next year. Related Video: New York Auto Show Jaguar Convertible Performance Classics jaguar special operations jaguar xkss

We drove to the Grand Tour Lapland taping in a British beater

In October, it was revealed that the Great British Motoring Show That Is Not Top Gear was going to be filming an episode somewhere in Finland. I happen to be Finnish, which meant I immediately applied for audience tickets, and then waited for the phone to ring. It never did, but a friend of mine got two tickets of his own. By that time it was announced that the filming was going to take place "somewhere in Lapland", and more precisely hundreds of kilometers north from the Arctic Circle. Excellent! We knew just how to get there. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Last summer, we spent GBP1000 ($1230 as of the publishing date) on a running and driving, British Racing Green Daimler Six on eBay and drove it home to Finland the long way, via Scotland. (In America, this car is known as the Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas.) It was still a little bit road legal in early November, as we had attempted to get it through Finnish import inspection. It failed on the grounds of the rocker panel welds being a bit crusty, but the following one-month grace and repair period meant we could still drive it on temporary sticker plates. So, after buying a set of Nokian winter tires the previous week, we set off from Helsinki the day before the filming. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. There is nothing quite like driving the entire length of Finland in a right-hand-drive four-liter rebadged Jaguar in one day – still on British plates, albeit taped over. We clocked up over 1100km in the comfort of the leather interior, whisked away by the four-liter six's oomphy torque and ambient thrum; every now and then stopping for fuel, swapping drivers and wiping the headlights clean from accumulating highway muck. As we passed Rovaniemi and the Santa's Village, roads gradually got so slippery the Nokians really proved their worth. Reindeer flocked on the road, along with foxes and the single white rabbit (he did not have a pocket watch, as far as we could tell). It was not the lack of sleep doing us in, even if the hotel bed was sorely needed after finally reaching the village of Saariselka in deepest Lapland. After a celebratory beer while watching Finnish karaoke, of course. But the show! The next day we spotted the Fisker, the Boxster, and the Saab 900 driving back from taping the show's localized intro.