Major Project: 1954 Jaguar XK120 SE
Jaguar XK120 project cars don’t come along every day but when they do, the buy-in is rarely low. A 1954 XK120 with the optional high output SE package is being offered for sale here on eBay in Princeton, Texas with a BIN price of $43,500.00 or offer with 19 days to go.
It’s hard to imagine the sensation that the Jaguar XK120 created when it was unveiled at the London Motor Show 70 years ago as a concept car. This low, flowing open sports car was created to promote Jaguar’s first post-war engine design, the legendary XK DOHC six cylinder. The great and the good of the time lined up with open checkbooks in hand to place orders, so Jaguar chairman William Lyons ordered that the concept be adapted for production. The XK-series of Jaguar sports cars was born.
The XK120 for sale is said to be a matching numbers car and the seller has posted photos of the body and engine numbers to back up the claim. A certificate from the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust would help bolster that claim and a serious buyer would be wise to order a search from them. The purchase price isn’t cheap and the restoration costs will also be quite high, so some due diligence is in order.
The exterior photos show a car that is preserved but in very rough condition. There is a lot of rust through on the steel body panels, but the aluminum panels look quite nice. The mixture of steel and aluminum panels are supported on an ash wood frame with the panels nailed in place. This method of car making went out favor in the US for most manufacturers before the Second World War, but for low volume builders like Jaguar, the practice lasted into the 1960s. It will take a skilled craftsman to do this job correctly.
Inside the car, the interior is largely missing. Gaping holes are present where the floor should be and the seller does not mention whether the seat frames are included with the car. New leather upholstery done to the correct standard can be staggeringly expensive and sourcing replacement frames might be challenging. We don’t have a clear view of the dashboard instruments, but from what we can see, some of them might be missing. The convertible top and frame are shown in a photo but the side curtains are probably missing as well.
The six cylinder 3.4-liter XK engine is a thing of beauty when it is nicely detailed. The polished aluminum cam covers secured by chrome acorn nuts are absolutely iconic. This particular car is claimed to have had the SE (Special Equipment) option installed which would have bumped the power output to 180 horsepower, up from the standard 160. Other power options offered at the time could coax up to 220 horsepower from the cast iron block/aluminum head mill. I hope the buyer is able to give this great old car the restoration it deserves. It will be neither cheap nor easy but the finished product should be stunning.
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Comments
Way out of my price range, it’s a beautiful car but it’s very rusty and is going to need a lot of metal fabrication work even before you get to that wooden frame. I beleave I have the skills and tools to take this car on but I don’t have the big pile of cash to make it happen. Good luck to the buyer there going to need it. One thing that makes me wonder about the one owner thing in this case is the poor condition of the car. They must have known what they had here long before it got this bad I just can’t help wonder why they let it get this way. Know it’s in the hands of a flipper looking to cash in.
What wood frame? This isn’t an MG………the wood in this car (has very little as a roadster) is ornamental. My DHC has a lot more wood but still dash and ornamental. Nothing structural. Everything about this car is common knowledge and every part is available major (and minor) body sections, complete newly manufactured frames and a deep pool of knowledge about how to put it together. One of the great classics from a bygone era sure to appreciate with time. This car will receive a nut and bolt restoration, it could be done in a year or so if capital is applied or over a longer period of time if work proceeds at a slow bell.
The doors and bootlid are wood framed.
Greetings All,
Dave, this car doesn’t have any ornamental wood, it’s an OTS or Roadster, not a Drop Head Coupe.
Structural wood in doors and trunk lid.
Only the first small handful of prototypes made (I think about 20) had all aluminum bodies and timber frames. I actually owned one of those many years ago. Obviously from the rust, this is not one of those so, any skilled MIG-man should be able to handle it.
Why is flipper such a bad word? We are all flippers if it comes to that. The chances are almost zero that the guy who stumbles on a rare Jaguar languishing in a barn for decades will also be a vintage Jaguar enthusiast with deep pockets and restoration skills. Barn finds are always going to be flipped and that is how they show up here for us to look at.
I am with you………few of these interesting projects would be seen without a “flipper”………..we all sell something, if even just our own time…..few here have the courage to lay out the cash to purchase something like this hoping for a profit after expenses. Dishonest people bother me but “flipper” is not a synonym for that. I don’t have to buy and sell to make a living any more…….although sometimes can’t resist……..so 99% of the things I buy these days will end up in an estate sale after I am gone. Maby that is just a different kind of “flipper”
I gotta agree with my Cuz on this one. 90% of the cars that hit the market are because of guys who put in the time and work to get these cars out there. I did a 50 Porsche deal a few years ago, it took 5 years to put together. Lots of people knew about the cars but no one could make a deal happen. They have almost all been sold off now, so that’s 50 new owners of Porsches, that wouldn’t have happened without a flipper. So the next time you want to talk trash about flippers, think twice, the car world is waaaayyy better off with them than without them.
True that! I’d rather see a car like this in the hands of a “flipper” than to see it languish away for another decade or two in whatever swamp or damp shed it was hiding.
Maybe I’m cynical but after 50+ years in and out of repair, restoration, etc. the first thing ( second & third also) I think of when I hear “flipper” is someone who pulls a car out of a “barn” or junkyard for free or a few $100 then maybe inflates or puts used tires on it, maybe sprays it off, and then puts it up for sale for $10,000’s of dollars. All of which seems to drive up prices for everybody else. On the other hand someone who finds one and puts in some effort to restore or repair it and for whatever reason has to sell it for a realistic price is a “seller”, not a “flipper”. (And a “reasonable profit” is certainly proper).
I bought a 57 Beetle I found on Barn Finds from this seller earlier this year. The car was exactly as described. The seller was competent, responsive and fair. Overall I’m very happy with the transaction and with the car.
Looks as if it used for target practice at the “South Philly Gun Show”
Have restored some pretty rough cars in my life but this one I’d probably pass on. Besides, I grew up working after junior high school along one of these that belonged to the owner of the dealership I was working at. Didn’t have a driver’s license but used to run parts in his car. Will never get the beautiful sound of that car out of my mind.
Definition: flipper – a bottled noised dolphin, friend to Bud’n Sandy.
I’m more familiar w/them’n houses. At least some wrk is put in w/that field (I spend near’a decade rehabbin bout 15 houses when “the gettin wuz good”)..
Here they R clerks or researchers often w/truck/trailer but mostly know transport co.s. Some R national or international. I would have more respect if their main was also puttin in some wrk or money. I think of them like ‘producers’ and the ‘service economy’. On the other hand I admire craftsmen, the folk in the trades…