Yeah, Baby! The ‘Austin Powers’ Shaguar E-Type Can Now Be Yours
The 1967 Jaguar E-Type—aka the “Shaguar”—appeared in all three “Austin Powers” movies.
The grooviest Jaguar to ever grace the the silver screen could be yours for… $1 million dollars. The sole “Shaguar” featured in all three Austin Powers movies is headed to auction at an upcoming Mecum event in January, Union Jack paint job and all.
The Hollywood provenance will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting if it’s to reach that positively evil hammer price, as Hagerty currently values the 1967 Jaguar E-Type on which the “Shaguar” is based at $130,000 for a model in tip-top shape. Still, seven figures is well within the realm of possibility for a car that’s so central to a culturally impactful comedic franchise.
As Mecum points out, Mike Myers mined deep to write and star in the superspy-spoofing triptych. Early interest in the genre he parodied started with his father, an Englishman who was fond of both James Bond and the countercultural movement of the 1960s. During Myers’ Saturday Night Live tenure, he was part of a spoof British 1960s rock band—his member’s name was Austin Powers. At the suggestion of his then-wife, Myers began parlaying the character’s antics into the first of three full-length movie scripts. Ultimately, Myers’ penchant for crafting shaga-dellic lore would lead the Austin Powers franchise to bring a combined $675 million at the box office.
As for the Shaguar, it superseded its automotive mission to become a character unto itself, from ferrying Powers and Elizabeth Hurley’s Vanessa Kensington around in the 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery to featuring with the leading man in Madonna’s msuic video for “Beautiful Stranger,” which was recorded for 1999’s Austin Powers: The Spy Show Shagged Me.
Mecum has further details on how the filmmakers eventually settled on a the 1967 Jaguar E-Type and its whereabouts since the final film:
The production settled on a 1967 Jaguar E-Type Roadster at the advice of Ray Claridge, owner of Cinema Vehicle Services, and Josh Hancock, owner of Joshcar, with whom Roach and Myers expressed their ideas for using a Jaguar but had no idea on exactly which Jaguar to choose.
No matter, Hancock sourced and prepped the E-Type and worked with the production to create a car that was a character all its own within the film. It would be known as Shaguar, complete with a rear decklid badge spelling it out.
Held as part of a private collection since the film series ended, Shaguar has occasionally been loaned out to the Jaguar Land Rover corporation for company events. In fact, in the mid-2000s, Jaguar Land Rover performed a lot of the car’s restoration and recently performed a comprehensive mechanical restoration. Documented with authentication letters from Hancock and Claridge, this is an excellent opportunity to expand on Austin Powers’ legacy and snap up a piece of Hollywood history—and it’s the only one of its kind.
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