As before, Jaguar's sole racing focus for the year was Le Mans and after their 1953 success, they arrived with three of the fantastic new Jaguar D-Type - purpose-built for the smooth tarmac of La Sarthe. A beautiful design, it had been tested in a wind-tunnel and featured the now-famous vertical fin to provide high-speed stability. Low (only ) and sleek, it was extremely fast: the 3.4-litre straight-6 engine was redesigned and tilted at 8 degrees (to reduce height, like the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL had done) and developed 250 bhp with a top speed over 270 km/h. The cars were so new that they had not even been painted when they got to Le Mans. The driver line-up was kept pretty much the same from 1953 with winners Tony Rolt / Duncan Hamilton, and 2nd place Stirling Moss / Peter Walker. This year Peter Whitehead was paired with F1 driver Ken Wharton (his former co-driver Ian Stewart was racing with his brother, Graham, at Aston Martin). An ex-works C-Type was provided for the Belgian Ecurie Francorchamps team when their original car was crashed on the way to the circuit by a Jaguar mechanic.