Attaching the adjective 'new' to a design currently celebrating its 60th birthday may seem a stretch, but that’s what the management of recently re-organized Proteus Cars have done with the latest Proteus C-type. And from our first experience with the car at the annual Silverstone customer track day of their UK South dealer, Richard Thorne Classic Cars, they’ve got a pretty valid case.

Much of the basic package remains familiar, which is good, because it’s been around and it’s well-sorted: a faithful reproduction of the legendary Jaguar C-type, built on an original-style tubular chassis with many Jag components, and wearing the same heart-breakingly sensual C-type shape.

The company’s reported aim with the new car, however, is to increase quality while bringing things more in-line with the demands of 21st Century road use. Induction is through programmable electronic sequential fuel injection that meets all applicable emissions standards, and the Jaguar 4.2-litre twin-cam is coupled to a Tremec Borg-Warner five-speed.

The chassis is shot-blasted and powder coated, and the non-assisted four-wheel disk brake system has Willwood front callipers. Body panels are made using the Superform process (as pioneered by Morgan) from an 'O-temper' aluminium alloy said to resist minor dents and dings.

It all works a treat aesthetically. The coachwork is smooth and pleasing, with generally excellent shut lines, allowing for the fact the whole nose pivots upward on a '50s chassis, and the paint on this example is to die for.

Likewise, the engine bay is nicely turned out and the interior is well finished in attractive materials and to commendable build standards. True to past form, it’s great fun on the track, with a sexy bellow from the big six as you power out of the corners, feeling for all the world like a genuine Le Mans Hero.

But more importantly for any 21st Century road ambitions, the new C-type is also quite a modern-behaved automobile off the track. It will sit happily in a traffic queue, inching patiently forward with the rest of the crawl (and we inadvertently proved this two days after Silverstone in the packed Reading city centre) and when necessary can pull quietly and unobtrusively away from a car full of suspicious policemen, or down your street with the sniffy neighbour twitching the window curtains.

Suspension compliance is furthermore suitable for genuine long-distance touring, and if you ditch the spare, it’s actually possible to squeeze a fair amount of soft luggage into the remaining hole. On the touring downside, the fixed-position driver’s seat isn’t very conducive to shared driving with other-sized partners, there’s obviously no weather protection whatsoever, and face it, four-point harnesses are more trouble than they’re worth on a road car.

Nonetheless, and in this admittedly early stage of development, the new Proteus C-type seems to have hit its targets quite well, gaining considerable usability and quality improvements while still offering plenty of fast-road and occasional track entertainment. It should be just the thing for that traditional fast Jaguar run down to La Sarthe.

Further information on the Proteus C-type is available at Richard Thorne Classic Cars, www.rtcc.co.uk, 0118 983 1200.