Jaguar XK120 SE.

Ellingson Classic Cars brings us yet another gorgeous thing to behold today.  This is a 1953 Jaguar XK120 SE roadster.  This one is in pristine condition because it was rebuilt recently and only has 46 miles on the odometer since it underwent that rebuild. 

 

The XK120 was made from 1948-1954.  The first XK120s had wooden frames, and at the time of their debut, they were the fastest production car in the world.  All had aluminum body panels to shave the car’s roughly 3,000 lb weight.  Here’s something cool about the XK120 –Clark Gable owned the very first one.  Well, if it’s good enough for Clark Gable, then it’s good enough to be our featured car today, isn’t it? 

The XK120s made from 1951-1954 feature a 3.4L inline 6 cylinder engine with dual overhead cams and dual SU carburetors for 190 HP and 210 lb-ft of torque.  That’s not bad at all for a car that’s 60 years old, and not too bad for a car this size now, even.  These cars had a 0-60 time of 9.5 seconds and a top speed of 120 MPH, which is where the “120” portion of its name comes from.

 

 

Ellingson’s example is a bit different from your run of the mill XK120 (as if a Jaguar XK120 could ever be run of the mill!).  To remove yet more weight from the vehicle, the passenger side seat has been deleted and a cowl placed over the space it would have occupied.  Also, we’ve got aeroscreens in place of a regular windshield and a front bumper delete.  This one is ready to race.

The one we are looking at today can be purchased for $169,950, so rest assured, you won’t see me driving it anytime soon barring some major windfall of cash.  Besides, I like to do stuff on the cheap when I can, so in that spirit, I looked around online last month after I first spotted this Jaguar and found some slightly more affordable XK120s....  of course they’re not all perfect like Ellingson’s, but if I had one of these, I’d want to drive it, and I wouldn’t want to worry about sullying my perfect show car, so cheap –or cheaper, anyway- is what I would be after.  So, what do we have to compare?  There’s a nice 1951 model for $128,000 that was listed in Hemmings.  A 1951 roadster was available in Chicago for $119,900, and it is beautiful, yet still very far away from any amount I would spend for something I was going to drive the way I’d want to drive a Jaguar XK120.  There’s a 1953 drophead coupe for $79,900, which is getting a little closer to a price that doesn’t include a sticker shock induced heart attack.  Then, of course, we find one that has been gutted and is in need of a complete restoration for $27,500.  Well, for that much, you could get your choice of some pretty respectable brand new cars that wouldn’t need a total restoration at an additional cost of thousands of dollars and lots of time… but it wouldn’t look like a Jaguar XK120 SE, though, would it?