British Collectors Pay $15 Million for a Car That Almost Never Existed

In 1957, a fire at the Jaguar factory in Coventry destroyed nine of the twenty-five XKSS models the marque was preparing for export. The car was the road-going iteration of the D-Type — winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in three consecutive editions. Of the original production run, only sixteen units ever crossed the Atlantic, and that industrial accident manufactured one of the most valuable scarcities in British motoring.

Steve McQueen purchased one in 1959. He kept it at his Los Angeles home and drove it regularly, lending the model a layer of historical provenance that continues to drive the XKSS’s reference price upward to this day.

In 2016, Jaguar Classic built the nine missing units to original specifications, using artisanal methods verified against the historical record. Each was priced at approximately $1.5 million and sold before leaving the workshop. Original examples continue to dominate the market, with premiums that widen with every auction season.

Recent transactions place the 1957 XKSS above $15 million, with documented cases exceeding $18 million. The gap between an original and a continuation car is explained entirely by the verifiable history of the individual example — a component of value that no industrial process can replicate.

In collector car markets, a documented provenance defines price with the same force as engineering — and in certain cases, with considerably greater weight.