Just caught this on Hagerty’s site. Jaguar announced that it’s offering a reproduction tookit for $941.
Three cheers to Jaguar for keeping the classic alive!
Odd thing to start offering, IMO. I guess they had to produce them for the continuation models and want to make something back on it.
Great you can get a bonnet, some panels, an exhaust (that will need a lot of work to fit), engine and transmission fluid…and now one day a tool kit. How about some of the NLA engine and gearbox parts while they’re at it? Asking a lot I know 
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IIRC, I’ve seen fairly decent originals at Hershey for not a whole lot more than that.
I think this is a funny review.
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“Jaguar says these now-rare sets exchange hands for as much as $6500.”
I imagine the guy that spent $6500 on a toolkit is bumming really hard right now.
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Jaguar lied…
I thing someone at Jaguar mis-spoke.
What’s the highest you’ve seen them sell for? I seem to remember looking around last year and $2K for a very complete and correct set was what I remember. Lots of sets that weren’t complete, or suspect.
Someone in Australia advertises E-type kits for 2 to 2.5K AU$
It would appear they buy up all the MKX and other similar toolkits,
have the correct leather pouch made, and voila
The seller appears to be a real expert, as the advert notes the differences between various Series kits
I recall a few in the $1000 - $1200 price range; complete, very original with the original tool roll.
Glad I coveted and hoarded my original 1967 tool roll.
Makes me glad the '68’s at least in USA trim only came with the Tommy bar and socket thingy. If mine had originally come with that full tool roll I would be tempted to spend too much for missing but unnecessary tools. They sure are neat to look at though if original.
David
68 E-type FHC
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Yep John, they were going for that price last I looked. There goes part of my retirement plan 
they were getting more valuable. The other part was my factory hard top. Sold it to Classic Showcase this summer for not a lot of money, I’d rather see it used on a car somewhere rather than sitting in a back bedroom. The tools OTOH, did not take up a lot of space and only a showpiece, not that useful so was keeping them but guess there’s no reason to now.
pauls
I will say that adjustable wrench does not look like the original 4" one, which AFAIK is the hardest bit to find. I don’t have it either.
pauls
IMHO that just about says it all.
Cheers,
LLynn
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The article’s wrap-up kind of says it all:
I know what I’m saying won’t matter to the sorts of people who might actually buy this leathern burrito of madness for a grand. I get that. But I think it’s important to keep things like this in perspective, because it’s the sorts of people who spend this kind of money on something that will never, ever be used that are most likely to look down on someone with an E-Type that’s not perfect but actually gets driven and used and enjoyed.
Screw those dummies and their $1000 of useless tools.
Now, if I could get a $1000 kit for my XK120 I might consider it …
… ok. Considered it.
Pass.
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Careful because most people look at what we do with our old, out-of-date cars as just as insane as what you think about the “tool roll people.”
If you are really against expensive tool rolls, get the JCNA to remove them from the scoring. Last I heard, it’s 14 points off for no tools. So it’s our hobby (i.e. us) that created the market for $20 worth of tools marked up to $1000.
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This is only true for concours cars, which in this forum at least, I believe is a fairly small percentage. If you drive it, then you’ll accumulate dirt and dings and feel inclined to update things to improve the reliability and performance. This is incompatible with wanting to take home a trophy.
But yet, you could put the most obvious driver on BAT and if it doesn’t have tools, it will be punished. My car has a tool roll in it, full of actual usable tools for an emergency, not for show. It’s a very odd mindset IMO to demand an original roll in a driver. Compound that with the fact that the majority of “original” rolls out there aren’t original to the car at all, at all but are instead cobbled together.
And it really is the whole Concours circuit in general that has shaped this market, and JCNA events are just following the broader trend. One of local Concours restorers has E type kits with perfect highest-end 100pt versions at about $4k down to decent driver level kits at $1k. While expensive, the cost of these are trivial compared to what goes on in the Ferrari world. A friend of a friend spent several years and over $20k completing the kit for his 275GTB, and that was in early 2000s.
While that article is sort of right that no one would use one of these tool kits, it sort of missed the whole point and didn’t put in in context of why having a kit is important in the first place. But also, I wonder if Jaguar has missed the whole point too. How will one of these kits be accepted in the only spot they’re needed, a judged Concours event? The kits changed slightly with the different models, and it doesn’t appear to me to be correct for either the 3.8 or 4.2. S1. Will Jaguar’s new kit fit judging criteria better or worse than a reproduction kit from one of the usuals, which is approximately the same price?
I dunno. With my car having the level of originality it does, I kind of like having the original tool kit (new bag, though). Have the original tool kits for all of my vintage cars. I guess it’s just part of the “complete” package of how the car was delivered and a “talking” point when showing the car to people who take an interest in the details. All my cars are drivers.
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