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“We were turning the pages and I saw a picture of the XJ13 and said “what a magnificently proportioned car this is”, Cooke reminisces.
He flippantly said, “Would you like one?” “I said yes, obviously.”
He said, “Why don’t we make two of them?”.
“I never thought much more about it, but he said “I’m serious, I’ve retired and I’ve got a house with a double garage. We’ll make two only, break the mould and never to make any more”.
And that’s what happened.
Over five years Bedford reconstructed the beautiful mid-engined XJ13 Le Mans sportscar with a “buck” (mould) made from 3000 pieces of craft timber.
He took the measurements from unofficial drawings and an AUTOart 1:18 model.
“Dennis proportioned it with a micrometer dial gauge used for measuring engineering parts,” Cooke says.
“He basically multiplied all the measurements by 18 to bring it up to full size.”
When it was finished, Cooke had the car painted Toyota Centre Red rather than the original British Racing Green.
“I would never own or race a green car,” he says.
“I like green in nature but not in cars. Green cars are recognised as one of the most dangerous colours as they blend in with the surroundings.”
Coke also owns two other red cars: a 2001 V12 Ferrari Barchetta and a 2004 Porsche 911 GT3 that he uses for track cars as well as daily drivers.
He uses the Jag up to nine times a year in various shows and motorsport events such as the Speed on Tweed.
Instead of the original quad cam five-litre V12 Jaguar engine, Bedford put in a standard 5.3L twin overhead cam V12 from the E-Type with a Getrag five-speed manual gearbox.
“It drives superbly, this thing,” says Cooke.
“It pulls well. We gained quite a bit of horsepower out of the tuned exhaust links and 12 twin-throat Webber carburettors.
“It’s fairly thirsty and a bit difficult to tune, but we’ve now got it right.”
Bedford sold the other half-finished replica to Australian drag racer Ash Marshall who shipped it to the US where it remains unfinished.
Cooke says there are two more replicas in Australia; one built by John Wilson in Canberra and the other by Frank and Michael Owen of Perth. Both are green.
“But this is the only red one we know of,” he says.
“Make me a large offer and you’d be surprised what would happen, but there is a certain amount of sentimentality about it. I might pass it on to my sons.”
His wife, Gwen, is adamant the Jag won't be sold.
“I love it because it was a dream of Digby”s to build something exotic,” she says.
“He just comes alive when he’s out in it. When he’s looking at it, it’s like a lady looking at a beautiful piece of jewellery.”
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