The Jaguar D-Type – from garage to glory

A homemade custom-built icon

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One weekend in August I went to one of the Stockholm Coffee and Cars events and, to my great delight as I rolled in on the motorcycle, I saw something that looked like a Jaguar D-type – but with far too many modern touches. The wheels alone gave away that something suspicious was going on – as did the hefty side pipes sticking out.

When I walk closer and look down into the cockpit, I see a clean, simple interior and a headrest that could just as well have been taken from my BMW.

But there is something about this car that makes my pulse beat a little harder, as everything radiates creativity and that “order and structure” kind of feeling.

I quickly check the license plate and see that it’s a – hmm – Brand: Henkes Model: CAR. What?

I walk around the meet trying to figure out who might be the owner of this incredibly stylish home-built machine.

I spot a blond man walking around with his wife and immediately get the feeling that it just might be him, but I decide to wait a bit and grab a coffee in the café before I start talking.

Imagine my surprise when I come out with the hot coffee in my hand and see the Jaguar heading across the parking lot, watching it roll past me – feeling a bit stunned as its swollen rear with its flowing curves and the white tattoo with the number 67 slowly glides away from me.

I smile to myself when I see that it is indeed the blond man driving, with his wife sitting next to him – while the deep rumble of a V8 reveals what’s under the hood.

14 pages forum – over 600 posts

On the way home, as the air pushes against my helmet visor, I think: it can’t be that hard to track down a home-built Jaguar D-Type.

Sure enough – a bit of Google, a bit of Instagram, a bit of forum browsing, and I had a perfect overview of this beautifully shaped Englishman, its build, and its owner.

In the forum LocostSweden.se I find the thread “Jaguar D-type med V8”, 14 pages long, which started on November 19th, 2019 by a Dmc12Hank.

He explains in the first post that he previously built a Seven with an Opel GSI four-cylinder, which he now drives every summer, but that he now intends to build a Jaguar D-Type.

He quickly goes through the components he has on the table for this build and asks the forum whether the gear ratio curve seems reasonable if he combines Mazda’s RX-8 rear differential with GM’s TH700 gearbox.

Helpful forum members jump in right away to offer their views, sharing all their knowledge in the thread and cheering on the cool project. Henrik seems satisfied with the answers.

The engine is a V8 from an eighties Camaro, and the front and rear suspension come from the same RX-8 as the differential.

He found the body on Blocket.se from a man in Falun, Sweden – who was “only” planning to throw it onto a Triumph Herald chassis, but realized it would be far more work than he had expected.Henrik had previously seen the body on Tributeautomotive.co.uk and already thought it was awesome – so he went for it.

“You might have to move the bookshelf”

I scroll post after post in the forum and can’t understand how Henrik has even had the space or the motivation to start building this incredible car.

In his tiny little terraced-house garage, the shelving is stacked with stuff from floor to ceiling, and he can barely set up the front and rear suspension without hitting the sides – there is literally only about 20 cm of space on each side of all four wheels.

The more I scroll, the more impressed I become.

In February 2020 Henrik buys his first load of frame material from Ståldepån in Spånga.

54 meters of steel frame in various sizes.

He immediately begins measuring and laying out the profiles to get a feel for how to start the build.

At the end of February 2020 he writes:

“It’s going insanely slowly, but I’m working on getting the front suspension together. There’s a lot to keep track of – anti-roll bar, steering rack, and crossmembers, so that nothing gets in the way of anything else. I’ve been cutting beams with a hacksaw, so I prefer to measure twice so I don’t get it wrong :)”

At this point I probably would have lost patience, but Henrik continues with his vision and patches together the RX-8’s components until a front suspension begins to take shape.

In mid-April the D-Type body has come down from the family’s summerplace in Hälsingland, and Henrik now realizes he will have to widen his cool fiberglass body quite a bit. At the same time he mentions that the car will need a flip front to make working on the engine easier, and because the original D-Type’s had a flip front as well.

He asks the forum if anyone knows anything about widening a fiberglass body and immediately gets a link to another thread in another forum where he can see how it should be done.

This is where I fall into laughter when I see the picture and the comment about widening the body and moving the shelf. The garage is like a shoebox and I admire Henriks non-clastrophobia in this stage of the building.

Henrik and his family decide to move

But the solution for this was just around the corner – because around this time Henrik and his family decide to sell their terraced house and buy a villa, so in order to be able to roll the car out of the tiny garage, he quickly tack-welds all the parts of the frame together so it can be pushed out before the house viewing.

The pandemic has now been around for a couple of months, and Henrik is now continuing building the car on his driveway instead. He has managed to create a neat and well-shaped driveshaft tunnel, while also preparing to move into the new villa garage.

Henrik is building the car together with the members of the forum

In the new villa garage you can see Henrik gaining fresh momentum and new energy. From August 2020 to January 2021, he manages to create something that really starts to look like a car.

The forum posts are now about how he should mount the rear dampers for the best effect, how he cuts the fiberglass body by hand — straight down the middle for the widening, how he creates a flip front instead of a conventional hood, how the steering should be mounted, what camber the wheels should have, how the pedal box should sit — all the functional elements are now beginning to take their place in the car.

All along he is encouraged and helped by his followers, who offer opinions and advice.

It’s almost as if he is building the car together with this group of forum members — even though he is standing alone in his garage in Spånga.

“There are at lease a million welds on this car”

Throughout this time Henrik posts suggestions for paint, interior, striping, etc., to test the group’s opinions and see what direction he should take.

In mid-January 2021, Henrik announces that he is going to start fully welding the frame.

If I’m following the timeline in the forum correctly, he spends almost two months welding, and when we meet later he says with a low voice and a sigh:

“There are at least a million welds on this car — it was exhausting, really exhausting.”

Summer 2021

From March to May 2021 the fuel system begins to take shape, and the tank at the rear is cushioned with bicycle inner tubes, which works surprisingly well, and things are really starting to look good.

The body is widened and finished in September 2021, and around the same time Henrik has a build inspection, which goes well with only a few minor notes — allowing the project to continue through autumn and winter.

It is also at this time that the side pipes begin to take shape, and discussions about mufflers start gaining momentum — while everything involving a radiator begins to take form at the very front under the flip front.

Throughout the build Henrik takes occasional breaks, including the months leading up to January 2022 — after which he begins correcting the space in the cockpit, one of the small issues noted during the inspection.

Later, during the first months of the year, he once again starts stripping — I’ve lost count of how many times now — parts off the car in preparation for painting the frame.

The discussions about which type of paint to use — whether silicone-based or alkyd — spark debate, and half a forum page fills up with arguments about what’s best.

Alkyd emerges as the winner.

PreSchool skills come in handy

In May 2022 Henrik finally goes all in and paints every angle and corner of the frame — the top, the right side, the left side, and the underside. Every steel profile he has previously welded together gets a stroke of paint.

Jobs like this are only for those of a stubborn breed — and by now we understand that Henrik is exactly that type. He doesn’t give up; he just keeps grinding away and truly enjoys going that extra mile to torture himself into happiness.

The result is beautiful, really beautiful, and it’s almost sad that everything will be covered by a body, as the black paint shines with its dark presence.

During early summer Henrik brings out the skills he acquired in preschool — with scissors and paper — drawing, cutting, and taping sheets of paper throughout the entire cockpit to get a sense of how everything should be built, before transferring the templates onto aluminum sheets.

The pieces are cut, fitted, and riveted in place. One piece of aluminum at a time, the car’s cockpit and firewall begin to take shape.

To add a bit of luxury, Henrik builds two cup holders in the center console.

When the summer sun finally breaks through, Henrik moves outside to finish the fiberglass work on his widened body.

While the body has been sitting next to the frame work, thoughts and ideas have taken shape — and now a wing, or “hump,” as Henrik calls it, has been added behind the driver, and the trunk becomes a more practical version on the right side of the rear. This is also when the decal with number 67 is applied for the first time.

In the forum he posts continuously, describing his progress. Sometimes it’s about the transmission cooling, sometimes it’s about the trunk hinges, and sometimes it’s that the driver’s door has a fitment issue and needs to be extended.

Meanwhile, back upstairs in the villa, he has moved the dashboard to the dining table, where colorful wires and gauges mingle with the orange salt and pepper grinders.

Autumn becomes winter, and winter becomes a new year — the build has now been going on for three years. It’s incredible that one person can have such endurance and patience.

Engine starts!

Henrik explains that the dark evenings, full-time work, and social commitments on weekends push the build a bit into the background. Life, as many of us call it — those of us who don’t build cars in the basement.

In February 2023, Henrik’s son Allan helps out and joins the engine and gearbox with a water pump, while also inspecting the seals in the transmission. They even manage to install the torque converter — before lowering everything into the car.

During March, colorful images fill the forum — the wiring harness, with all its bright wires, begins to snake its way through the car, from the cockpit out into the engine bay. Now the excitement really starts to grow among us readers, because the heart of the build is beginning to take shape.

Update from April 3, 2023:

“A few small leaks and some minor electrical faults I’m working on fixing. That’ll have to wait for another day. I’ve run it on the starter motor and I’ve got spark, so it’s not that far off, I hope.”

April 10, 2023 brings the bombshell:

“First startup! It started right away — wonderful! Sounds like the timing is a bit off. Possibly it’s only running on seven cylinders. Couldn’t turn it off either 😁”

Sands the car by hand, stroke by stroke

After getting help in the forum — where it turned out a cable from the alternator had been miswired — Henrik was finally able to both start and stop the engine on April 15th, which one might argue is a basic requirement when building a car.

Now things start to move quickly — on April 23rd the car rolls out under its own power and Henrik is taking it for a lap around his neighborhood. For the first time, he drives the car, and the review didn’t take long to arrive:

“Went damn great!”

Then comes an immediate question from Henrik: does anyone have tips for a less noisy fuel pump? Understandable — in the clip Henrik posted, the fuel pump screams as if the car is charging forward at 300 km/h, while it’s actually just idling.

Henrik also realizes that a brake booster is absolutely necessary as well. 

After a trip to Hansen Racing and Bildelsbasen, both pump and booster are installed, and by the end of May 2023 the feeling begins to emerge that this build is actually going to be finished — really finished. Discussions about paint shops and how best to prime a fiberglass body begins.

Throughout summer 2023 Henrik sands the car by hand, stroke by stroke.

Unified color for the first time

The forum cheers him on, and you can sense in his posts that he is getting a bit tired of this soul-crushing task — which I think we can all understand. But by September things begin to brighten again, as Henrik and his son start to feel satisfied with the sanding and can look toward the next step.

In autumn there is lots of small tinkering on the car while Henrik explains that not a single paint shop in Stockholm wants to put color on this cool build.

Months pass, and in December Henrik explains that he is building more in his head than physically in the garage at the moment — but he declares that in January 2024 things will pick up again.

During spring 2024 the gaps between forum posts grow, but the small details — painting trim pieces, refining the trunk interior, and more — continue to be perfected.

In early May he applies epoxy primer, giving the car a single, unified color for the first time — suddenly creating a vision of how beautiful this could become.

Brand: Henrik Model: Car

Two weeks later the car is “pre-inspected,” and the sound level is approved, which means everyone in the forum now sees the beginning of the end of this long, exciting, and persistent journey. Fantastic. The car lights up the tunnel whose end grows closer and closer.

On July 11th, 2024, the big moment arrives: Henrik’s car passes its registration inspection and receives a license plate.

In the forum Henrik explains the name of the car:

“When I built my previous car, a Locost, Marlon — my SFRO inspector — asked what I wanted to call the build. I hadn’t even thought about it, so he said, I’ll write ‘Henke’s car’ for now. I completely forgot about it, so now the manufacturer is ‘Henke’s Car.’ It’s so ridiculously bad that it’s actually good. That’s why I named this car Henke’s Car as well.”

Those in the forum who have followed Henrik — along with a few who never wrote anything during the build — congratulate him on his enormous and fantastic achievement and the progress he has made over the four years and thousands of hours he has invested.

The most amazing thing is that all this hard work has now become a car that resembles a Jaguar D-Type, but with Henrik’s own touch, feel, and precision.

When we later meet and I bring up this post, I see Henrik’s eyes light up and a warm, wide smile spread across his entire face.

“It was a special day.”

The icon is on the move

In the forum, the build questions now disappear and shift instead to rules about license plate size — and to Henrik settling on the car’s color: Ivy Green, a metallic British Racing Green.

In hindsight, after colors like yellow, red, blue, light green, and more were considered — Ivy Green is absolutely the right color for this classic Englishman.

From late July into August, the painter in Hälsingland gets his hands on the car, and after all the sanding Henrik and Allan had done — believing everything was perfect — the painter sands and fills it a few more rounds.

When I scroll down to August 14th, 2024, I get chills down my neck and arms.

Because there it stands, painted, with lights, windshield, and trim, on a yellow-green lawn in Hälsingland — ready for its maiden voyage down to Stockholm.

“The trip went great and it’s comfortable to sit in,” Henrik writes. The cooling fuse blew, but it wasn’t a major issue.

On August 27th, 2024, Henrik posts the final photo of the build, after attaching the white circle with the black number 67 inside it.

Here the forum saga of Henrik and his incredible build comes to rest — after almost 1750 days, or 249 weeks, or 4 years and 8 months — from 50 kilos of steel profiles, a rear and front suspension from an RX-8, a V8 from a Camaro, and a too-narrow Jaguar D-Type body — Henrik’s Car now stands in green metallic, ready to drive, finished on his driveway in Spånga.

Henrik has done a job few in the world could manage

Before we set off in Henrik’s Car, all the “old” cars I’ve driven and ridden in come to mind — this is going to be stiff and bumpy.

Already at the first curb I can feel that this is different.

The car’s vintage appearance becomes an illusion — with every bump and dip the car moves with ease, and it feels as if the Jaguar’s light 1100-kg body floats over the uneven surface.

The rumble of the V8 almost makes me fall asleep — it’s so calm and hypnotically beautiful.

The deep, muscular serenade of the eight cylinders pours out across sidewalks, hedges, football fields, houses, and bus stops as we rumble through the suburbs.

Some people don’t even grasp the greatness when they see the car, while others react instantly, grinning from ear to ear and trying to get their friend’s attention with a nudge or a tap on the arm.

Between the speed bumps the throttle goes down and the side pipes roar — the shove in my back is lovely, the car sits perfectly on the street, and the wind noise makes me smile. I snap a photo of Henrik in the rearview mirror and see an incredibly satisfied man who knows he has done a job few in the world could manage.

Look into the forum?

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