Coventry, England · Est. 2014
Hand-built Jaguar XJ13, Porsche 550 & E-Type re-creations — and the tera® V12, the engine the E-Type always deserved.
Welcome · Building The Legend
Meet Neville Swales — a self-taught engineer who left the brewhouse for the workshop, and devoted his life to recreating the lost Jaguar XJ13 with toolroom-level precision.
Proudly hand-built close to Jaguar's spiritual home in Coventry, bespoke and tailored exclusively for you.
The founder
Neville Swales didn't follow a conventional path into engineering. He began his working life in the family brewing business — but his real passion was always the cars that captured his imagination as a boy.
Settling in Coventry, the spiritual home of Jaguar, he taught himself his craft and set about building something no one else had: a meticulous, cross-referenced database of lost Jaguar history, pieced together from factory drawings and the people who built them.
Our builds
Custom creations and restomod builds, engineered in Coventry and made to order.
Recognition
2016 · Car of the Year
Finalist — the XJ13 recreation
Competing directly against factory legends including the Le Mans-winning Ford GT40.
2023 · Specialist of the Year
Finalist
Recognised for engineering excellence in historic motoring.
2024 · Bespoke Car of the Year
Recognition
Award-level recognition for bespoke coachbuilding.
Born from the XJ13
Out of the XJ13 project came the tera® — Building The Legend's own bespoke, normally-aspirated 6.1-litre quad-cam V12. It's inspired by the legendary 1960s V12 racing engines of Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Claude Baily's original quad-cam design for Jaguar — and it now sits at the heart of every build that leaves the workshop.
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Enquire
From a bespoke interpretation of a lost legend to a tera® V12 for your own project — tell us about your build and we'll come back with a tailored proposal and quote. No obligation — advice and a quote, not spam. We reply personally to every enquiry.