911 By Singer Vs Eagle E-Type: Choose Your Weapon

Last weekend’s Top Gear featured James May driving the Singer 911 for the first time. Now, as many of you will probably be aware, the Singer has been right at the top of a great many car enthusiasts’ want lists for quite some time now. Why? Well, just look at it, for one thing. A modern reimagining of a classic icon, the Singer is unutterably, endlessly, perfectly cool. Every single detail has had the utmost care and love lavished upon it. It’s like no supercar you’ve ever seen before.

And yet, Singer isn’t alone in reimagining classics. Nor is it the first to do so. I’ve always had a massive soft spot for Jaguars, and so while I was watching May flinging his Singer around, I was sitting there wondering whether I wouldn’t rather have an Eagle E-Type.

You’ll probably already be aware of Eagle. It’s the small East Sussex-based company that produced the spectacular E-Type Speedster – the very same we’ve already seen on Top Gear with Clarkson at the helm, declaring it “absolute perfection”. And while I’d hand-on-heart take a Speedster over a Singer were money no object, that isn’t exactly a fair comparison. Because money is an object, and the Eagle costs £550,000 – around four times as much as the most basic Singer.

Fortunately, Eagle doesn’t just make the Speedster. In fact, before that objet d’art came along, it was better-known for its restoration of E-Types. Actually, ‘restoration’ doesn’t quite cover it, because what Eagle does is to take its E-Types apart, bolt by bolt, before refurbishing each part, even down to the smallest electrical contact, and building it back up again – complete, if the owner wishes, with a modernised or uprated engine, gearbox, or suspension or brake setup. Even air conditioning can be specified, all enclosed in a heater box that’s been designed to look as close as possible to the original, so that you’d never tell. Eagle does to E-Types, in other words, what Singer does to Porsches.

With one notable exception. Singer’s cars are, quite obviously, a modern take on a classic. Touches like the projector headlamps and more purposeful stance see to that. By contrast, Eagle’s cars are intended to look as close to the originals as they can. Each approach has its merits – and its downsides. Which leads me back to the question of pondering which I’d pick, if I had to.

I’ll be clear, at this juncture, about the fact that this isn’t an objective comparison. I haven’t yet been lucky enough to drive either, and I’m not going to be any time soon. But you know what? I’m not sure that that’s quite as important here as it is in most other comparisons, because I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that each will be pretty special in its own way. What’s more, I reckon the driving experience will in fact come second as a part of the buying decision to the prospective buyer’s predilections. In other words, driving the Eagle probably wouldn’t make you buy it if your heart was set on the Singer, and vice versa.

Price, on the other hand, will matter. The basic, 300bhp Singer will set you back somewhere around £150,000, depending on the exchange rate and before import costs. An Eagle E-Type will cost considerably more – the restoration alone will set you back well over £200,000, depending on the model year of the donor car, the price of which you’ll have to factor in on top. Can it justify that premium?

I’m really not sure it can. And yet, an Eagle has always been top of my ‘lottery win’ list. As an object – as a beautiful thing to behold and to roll around in – for me, it’s more desirable than the Singer. Not by much, but there it is – and I’d still have to own one. But the Singer makes more sense; it offers more and it gives more for less money, and the little tweaks that mark it out as a modern upgrade do enhance the looks of the original.

A conclusion, then? You won’t find one here. Because, to be quite frank with you, I haven’t decided. Each time I sway toward the Singer, I take one look at an E-Type and go “but it’s an E-Type”. So, as a result of my frankly lily-livered indecision, I want to open the floor to you.

Let us know by dropping a vote into the poll and be sure to give your reason in the comments.

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