The XK 120 was created to showcase its DOHC inline six-cylinder engine that remained in service over four decades.
The Most Beautiful Car In The World, Jaguar’s E-Type, has an older cousin which didn’t come with a Le Mans heritage or frantic drive through the darkness, to make its media launch on time.
Jaguar’s XK120 arrived almost as an afterthought; a car to showcase the parent company’s marvellous new double overhead camshaft engine but not intended for volume production. The engine, alternatively, would power every six-cylinder Jaguar until the mid-1980s.
It was a powerplant full of promise and shrouded in mystery, which prior to its appearance on Jaguar’s 1948 London Motor Show stand, was unseen and largely unknown. Later, it would be revealed that the 3.4-litre XK engine had seen most of its development undertaken in a wartime factory by a Dream Team of British automotive engineers, on Fire Watch duty.
Jaguar had entered World War II with an uncertain future and a company name that would not survive the conflict. Officially it was known as SS Cars, with Jaguar serving as the model name for its sportier versions. Avoiding any link between ‘SS’ and the Nazi regime, the name had by 1945 been changed to Jaguar Cars and new products were in the planning. However, an exotic sports model was nowhere near the top of that list.
Company founder William Lyons intended the new six-cylinder engine to power a big, prestige sedan that could be sold in markets around the world. By late 1948, the engine was ready for use but the car it was intended to power, was still under development.
As detailed in Paul Skilleter’s definitive Jaguar Sports Cars, the XK120 was conceived and constructed just weeks before the 1948 London Motor Show where Jaguar’s new engine would also be seen for the first time.
As a basis for the build, a Mark V chassis was shortened and made lighter, with its wishbone and torsion-bar suspension retained.
Reportedly using a pre-War prototype and BMW’s 328 sports car as inspiration, William Lyons supervised a team of sheet-metal workers as they brought the new XK Sports to life.
According to Skilleter’s account, which drew heavily on Lyons’ own recollections, a problem they encountered with mating the bonnet and tall, narrow grille was creatively solved by attaching the grille directly to the bonnet so the pair lifted together.
Production of the XK120 was intended to cease after just 200 cars were made, but demand ensured that would not happen. In all, 240 alloy cars were eventually made, with a steel firewall and inner mudguards supporting aluminium alloy panels.
Even before orders for the first cars were filled in late 1949, Jaguar was working with a different supplier, Pressed Metal Limited, to reconfigure the car for construction in steel.
All of PMC’s initial production would be open-top sports, with two seats, a rudimentary soft-top and side-screens. Then from March 1951 the Fixed Head Coupe became available.
Credit for its creation is attributed to Motor journalist Joe Lowery, who within his review of an open-top XK suggested that Jaguar next needed to create a version “which would cause executives to sack the chauffeur, sell the limousine and head to the countryside with a briefcase and occasional passenger, all at unprintable average speeds”.
Lyons willingly accepted the challenge of building an ‘executive express’ on his XK platform, despite the significant changes needed and development cost involved.
First to go were the original car’s cutaway doors, replaced by a near-straight line from front to rear wing. Adding a curved rear roofline was easy for Lyons, drawing inspiration from the C-pillar of his still-new Mark VII Saloon. Extra headroom was created by raising the roofline slightly beyond the height of an OTS when its folding top was in place.
Inside, the ambience of a Mark VII in sporting guise was continued, with leather-trimmed lounge chairs replacing skimpy buckets. The floors and substantial central tunnel were carpeted and timber veneer, not feasible in a car exposed to the elements, decorated the dash and door cappings.
Wind-up windows replaced fiddly, draughty side-screens and a small shelf behind the seats supplied extra storage. Out of sight beneath it, sat the car’s twin six-volt batteries.
Fixed-roof XKs cost £180 more than open tops and were largely intended for export. They accordingly sold far better in the USA than other markets, with 2484 LHD cars sold as opposed to the 195 reputedly sent to right-hand drive markets.
Graham Jordan’s car is #181 in that sequence and was delivered on September 9, 1954 through Attwoods in the English city of Wolverhampton. It didn’t remain in Britain too long though, being freighted to Australia around 1964 .
“It was probably in New South Wales for a while, as XK historian John Elmgreen remembers seeing it there in the 1970s; in original black with a tan interior,” owner Graham Jordan said when recounting the car’s history in Australia. “It then ran through a series of owners before finding its way to Queensland.”
There it came to the attention of XK authority and Jaguar Drivers Club of QLD Chief Judge, the late Lloyd Anderson.
“Lloyd knew I was on the lookout for a Fixed Head XK120 and let me know about this car that had been pushed into the corner of a truck repair business in Burpengary, north of Brisbane,” Graham recalled.
That was in 2011, but Graham’s attraction to the brand had first surfaced during the 1980s.
“My uncle had worked for the Jaguar agency Shelley Motors in Wellington, New Zealand. One of my earlier memories was of him owning a Series 2 XJ12 that he had stored at my parents’ place. My then new interest in Jaguars served to reignite his passion for them and fuel mine, further resulting the number of Jaguars owned between us increasing.”
“While on a work contract in Auckland aged 22, I bought my first, a 2.4-litre Mark 2, followed by a Mark V Saloon. It’s a 3.5-litre and one of only 46 Mark Vs to be New Zealand assembled. I brought it with me to Australia when we moved across in 2008.”
“The thing that attracted me to Jaguars was their timber and leather interior plus, of course, the sporty shape of the XKs, so a Fixed Head Coupe ticked all the boxes.”
By now living in Australia, Graham had missed out on a couple of ex-USA cars which were residing in New Zealand after being imported and converted. When this genuine RHD car was discovered less than an hour from Graham’s Sunshine Coast home, it wasn’t going to slip by.
“As you can see from the ‘as found’ photograph it was pretty much a shell surrounded by various bits that took time to collect and identify,” he said.
Amongst the bits with the car was the original cylinder head and a correct block – albeit not the original. Also, the correct carburettors with their date codes stamped on the inlet manifold side.
“At some point the car’s interior had been removed and fitted to car #99, which had been with the same owner in New South Wales after that car lost its interior in a warehouse fire,” Graham revealed.
“Car #99 has also subsequently been fully restored and I actually was able to retrieve the original interior from my car following that restoration.”
Graham had already been in contact with Gavin King and seen the stunning work coming out of his Concours Sportscar Restoration business on the NSW Central Coast, so it was natural to send the rare Fixed Head to Gavin for a complete revival.
“If there was anything to be learned about restoring XKs, Gavin’s staff knew it,” Graham said. “It was a huge job, around 1700 hours spent on the body alone, and I didn’t have limitless funds, so the restoration ended up taking almost eight years.”
During part of that time, Gavin King was also working with a prominent restoration business in the Philippines and had Graham’s engine sent over so he could rebuild it personally.
A replacement interior to the correct factory pattern and colour was produced by Stitched Up Customs of Tuggerah, NSW, while the amazing set of timber veneer panels was supplied by CG Autowood in the USA.
“Although most of the original woodwork was present with my car, completing a full set would have required some non-matching pieces, so a beautifully made new set was created.”
The authentic tool roll was another difficulty to overcome, averted with help from Jaguar devotee Roger Payne, who advised on what was required and helped Graham identify a set of correct tools. Then came the search for the correct tool roll in decent condition and that proved challenging, so Graham made up his own, almost exact, replica.
“Reproductions of the tool roll for the earlier OTS and FHC’s were available but not for the later ’54 cars. Although I had sourced a genuine roll, its condition was as expected being 70 years old. I therefore made my own with correct pattern material, strap and buckle.”
Tyres were at the time problematic as well, with correct 6.00×16 cross-plys difficult to source. That was until age-correct Avon Turbospeeds were brought back into production, just in time to be fitted to Graham’s beautifully restored steel wheels. They even have correct Schrader valve caps.
“Wire wheels were an option on XKs, but the wheels on mine were steel and we left them that way,” Graham explained. “Special Equipment versions of the Fixed Head had an extra 30 horsepower, but this car used the standard 160 horsepower engine and that’s how it has been restored.”
Graham was fortunate to have his XK completed during the time of lockdowns and border closures that accompanied COVID-19 and to have a dedicated restorer like Gavin King who delivered the car to Queensland, driving alone with the car in a covered trailer.
Finally in 2022 the car could be shown publicly, and immediate results reflected its standard of presentation – Outright Winner at the All British Display Day in Brisbane (2022), Best Sportscar at the Noosa Car Show in 2022, then outright Best of Show at the inaugural 2023 Noosa Concours d’Elegance.
During April, Graham’s car and a black Mercedes-Benz Gullwing, which won People’s Choice at the Noosa event were displayed together on the Hastings Street tourist strip to promote this year’s Concours.
The XK, despite its scarcity and show-winning ways, is no coddled show pony. The car is driven regularly to locales on Queensland’s picturesque Sunshine Coast and Graham has no doubt it would reach 120mph if ever he ventured on to a race circuit.
He even had some kind words for the Moss manual transmission; a gearbox that has challenged many drivers of pre-1964 Jaguars and other quality British cars.
“It’s a good, strong gearbox, you just need to be patient with it and even when the oil is warm don’t rush the changes.”
Graham’s next project is an equally significant and even less common car than the Fixed Head. His 2.5-litre SS Saloon is listed as a 1940 model and must have been built just as the factory was switching from private-car construction to wartime production. It is believed to be one of just two such cars delivered new to Australia and is one of seven known to remain worldwide.
VITAL STATS 1954 JAGUAR XK120 FIXED HEAD COUPE
BODY: Steel, box-section chassis, two-door coupe
ENGINE: 3442cc inline six-cylinder w/ double overhead camshafts and twin side-draft carburettors
POWER: 119kW (160bhp) at 5500rpm
TORQUE: 262Nm at 2500rpm
PERFORMANCE: 0-96km/h 9.9 seconds 0-400 metres 17.3 seconds
TRANSMISSION: Four-speed manual
SUSPENSION: Independent w/ torsion bars and coil springs, lever action-shock absorbers and anti-roll bar (f), live axle w/ semi-elliptic springs, lever- action shock absorbers (r)
BRAKES: Drums (f & r)
WHEELS: 16-inch steel or wire spoke
PRICE WHEN NEW:
£1255 (UK)
THE JAGUAR DREAM TEAM
Jaguar could not have progressed so far in so short a time without an extraordinary team of engineers and designers, creating extraordinary and affordable cars. Here, in brief, are the men responsible for the XK, D-Type, E-Type and many more models that would embody the Jaguar credo of ‘Grace, Space and Pace’.
William (later Sir William) Lyons: Managing director in charge of concept and overall design. Lyons also supervised styling, with a talent so intuitive he could visualise the shape of a car before ever reaching for a sketch pad. Lyons devised the XK, E-Type and ‘compact’ Jaguars, finishing his tenure with the evocative XJC pillarless coupe.
William (Bill) Heynes: As chief engineer, Heynes, who had joined Jaguar from Humber in 1935 and stayed until 1989, supervised chassis and engine development for every new model produced by Jaguar in the post-WWII period. He was also the motivating force behind Jaguar’s Le Mans race programme which brought five wins during the 1950s.
Walter (Wally) Hassan: Began as a Bentley apprentice before moving to SS Cars and then Bristol. During the 1940s, Hassan was integral, as a member of the ‘Fire Watch’ team, to the development of four and six-cylinder versions of the XK engine.
Claude Baily: Spent his early working life with Morris and MG but joined Jaguar in 1940 as chief of engine development. While Baily worked beside the other Dream Team members in developing the XK, his role during wartime had chiefly been concerned with development of lightweight all-terrain military vehicles.
Photography: Iain Curry