It’s official. My dad’s old XK 120 is on the block:
eBay Motors: Jaguar (item 250102645237 end time Apr-14-07 16:41:35 PDT)
This highly reliable old war horse is up for sale. I’m going to miss it. My father bought it in 1999; his second post-retirement collector car purchase. He had owned the E-type for several years but found that many of the vintage events that he really wanted to attend would not accept a car as “young” as the E-type. He found this really nice XK 120 being sold by a Doctor in Houston and bought it. Suddenly a whole new level of event was open to him, such as the California Mille, the Colorado Grand, etc. I first saw and drove this car on the La Carerra Nevada in June of 2000. I still recall that event fondly, mostly because it was insane… completely bonkers. The field was made up entirely of pre-1955 cars, and all but two were American iron. There was another XK 120 there, an FHC, and more than half of the cars entered failed somehow/DNF’ed… EXCEPT the two old Jags! So much for the supposed “unreliability” of British cars eh? It was just crazy to traverse this barren outback in an iconic beauty such as the XK 120. Here was a lithe English sports car, built for A-roads and Autobahns, tearing up pavement and gravel, and leaving the Locals in the dust! Tons of fun.
I distinctly recall a moment, tearing along a desert valley floor’s smooth, but still gravel-surfaced road, around 75 MPH, with a plume of dust behind us… turning to my father with a grin and saying “I don’t quite think this is what Sir William had in mind.”
After a proper rebuild of the SU carbs a year later the XK really came into its own, and reclaimed the BHP time had robbed from it. I drove the car 3 years after the Nevada rally and it was a revelation. The agricultural rear suspension was still there, but the grunt from that engine! Wow. High Performance Tractor! In the 2003 New England 1000 the car felt wonderful. Fast, fun, and flair! Grace, Pace and Space (now that my father’s pedal & seat mods made me (5′ 11″) finally fit so that I could drive without “squatting” in the foot well.
I really do hope that this car finds a good home, with somebody that will DRIVE it. If you know somebody in the market for a good driver-level XK, pass it along.
