Gooding and Company just consigned the sexiest car on the planet

[DeaGLe^]

Santa Monica, California-based Gooding and Company recently announced the consignment of what is almost certainly the sexiest car in existence. The 1957 Jaguar XKSS is one of only 16 built and is expected to sell in the neighborhood of $16 million to $18 million. What makes the XKSS capable of vying for and likely winning the above and admittedly highly subjective title? Here are five reasons:
1. Just Look at It
Enough said, really. While aerodynamicist Malcolm Sayer wasn’t necessarily trying to achieve great beauty with the design of the car (he simply wanted something that punched through the air efficiently while going 170 mph down the Mulsanne Straight), the result is a stunningly beautiful weapons-grade sports car. Squat and pugnacious, in some ways, it’s like an E-type that has been inflated by another 30 psi or so -- it’s brutish where the later E-type was simply elegant and slightly feminine. The clumsy side exhaust, tacked-on windscreen and tail lamps don’t manage to detract from the car’s massive appeal.
2. The Backstory is One for the Ages
The XKSS is a thinly veiled version of the multiple Le Mans-winning D-type. With the D-type no longer competitive in first-tier endurance racing, Jaguar was stuck with what was essentially a 120-year supply of obsolete race car. The solution? Make it street legal and sell the car to retail customers. As you would in a world with no plaintiff’s lawyers or safety regulations of any kind. Doors were hastily cut in the alloy bodywork, a makeshift top and windscreen were added and voila, a street car. It seems crazy, but then these were the days when some race cars were actually driven rather than transported to the circuit. Only 16 were built before a fire at Jaguar’s Browns Lane factory in Coventry, England, ended things -- until this year, that is, when Jaguar announced that they would build the cars to go with the allocated-but-never-used chassis numbers.

3. Steve McQueen Owned One
The King of Cool, Steve McQueen owned the same XKSS twice, and it was in his possession when he passed away in 1980. It now resides in the Petersen Museum. Longtime LA residents remember his wild drives up Mulholland Drive to his house on Solar Avenue.
4. It’s Scary Fast
You generally don’t think of cars from the 1950s as particularly fast in the modern sense, but the XKSS was. 0-60 came up in about 5.2 seconds and the quarter-mile was dispatched in less than 14 seconds at 100 mph. With a limited-slip differential, modern tires and a contact patch wider than that of a mountain bike, those numbers would have undoubtedly been even more impressive.
5. It’s Collector-Car Royalty
For all of the aforementioned reasons, the XKSS is solidly an eight-figure car. Given the fact that it’s about twice as rare as a Ferrari 250 GTO, dare we say it, at half the price, it even seems a bit of a bargain.