Car Photo(s) of the Day: Steve McQueen’s other car… the Jaguar XKSS

I noted via a twitter from the Autoblog guys that Jalopnik is featuring Steve McQueen’s Jaguar XKSS today. But they only have a couple of photos of the car itself. That just won’t do!

Given that I’ve had the distinct pleasure of being around (and in!) a few XKSS’ in my time, I figured I’d share some bounty. Given that there were only 16 built, and just over a dozen remain in their original configuration they should be savored, so here’s twice as many XKSS photos than there were XKSS’ built. Enjoy!

Update: Paul got most of them right, but here they are now captioned with their IDs…

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Car Photo(s) of the Day: Weekend Stumpers.

Nick & I will were scheduled be gone all day long, at the All British Field Meet in Vancouver BC today. Meanwhile I’ll leave you with a bunch of mysteries for the carspotters to debate over while I’m gone working in the yard. Behave yourselves!

Note: This post was pre-written at lunchtime on Friday and set to go live around 7 am. Nick arrived home later in the day with an armload of homework, so he called off the trip to Vancouver. Enjoy the photos and good luck. (I’ll check in and see how the carspotting is going occasionally.)

Cunningham C3 Vignale Coupe

1941 Buick Special

An old Volvo with a Ford V-6 dropped in

Daimler 250 SP Dart

1915 Brewster Town Landaulet

Interior of a Mazda Cosmo

1941 Lincoln Phaeton Limousine

Seagrave Fire Engine circa 1927-1932

Rusty old Jeep straight six engine from an old Wagoneer

My Jetta in the street, but a real oddball on the driveway! The Mazda Cosmo

Jaguar XK engine head bolts (sort of engine pR0n bonus)

The question came up on the E-type mailing list this evening about the number of washers under the head bolts on early Jaguar 4.2L XK engines. Since I have one, I said I’d run and take some photos. So here they are.

Looks like just the one D-shaped thick washer Ben. Hope that helps.

The rest of you can just view this as more engine porn. =)

New Theme: Engine pR0n.

Oh yeah, baby, yeah.

I promised some photos of the engine of the Mercedes-Benz 540k Special Roadster a while back when it appeared as the “Car Photo of the Day”, and while digging I found all manner of photos I have of engines in various stages of undress. A light bulb went off over my head: “this is like porn for gearheads!” A new theme is born.

Much like the “Road Photo of the Day” theme I’ll write a bit and show some nice engines.

The above almost needs no explanation, as it is one of the iconic V-12s from Maranello. Enzo Ferrari always was an engine builder more than a car builder. To Enzo a car was merely a place-holder for his engines. He famously once said “Aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines” but of course was forced to adopt them once his world-beating engines started losing to areo-equipped lesser machines.

Stay tuned for more!