1954 XK 120 Drop Head Coupe, with Special Equipment. One of a total of 1769 DHCs built and one of about 400 built with Special Equipment (M). Born April of 1954, sold by Max Hoffman in New York City.
My first memories of Jaguar cars was in the mid fifties when my father came to our home behind the wheel of a friends XK 120. I was all of eleven years of age, and was impressed by the sleek lines of the car. I was also impressed by my dad?s comment later about how he thought the car was so much slower than it felt like it was going. This was until he learned that the instrument on the left side of the dash was a tachometer and that he had been going MUCH faster than 45 ?mph?! That Jaguar had a lasting impression on me, but more importantly, it had the same affect upon my artist mother, she thought (thinks) that the 120 Jaguar to be one of the most beautiful automobiles ever made.
Five years later in late 1959, a local ?foreign car shop? run by a gentleman named Peter Atkinson, (Formerly Max Hoffman?s service manager, and soon to become a mentor to this 16 year old motorhead.) had a 1954 XK 120 Drop Head Coupe for sale. Peter was helping its original owner, a doctor in Princeton to find the car a new home.
I do not know how my mother found out about the car, but with the help of a recently received, small inheritance, the Jag was brought home as a ?present? to my father; the total price was $1250.00 and a Black ?50 Chevy.
Over the following 10 years, my dad used the car for daily back & forth to work, and on weekends, he and my mother, went SCCA rallying. They have today, many trophies, silver plates and dash plaques from those years of running that Jag all over New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, etc. in quest of more silver. They also attended SCCA club races as spectators at places like Vineland NJ, Marlboro Maryland, Bridgehampton NY, Watkins Glen NY for the USGP. At some time in that time period, we discovered that the car was a ?Special Equipment? 120, with the high lift cams, dual exhaust etc that came with that factory option. We learned later that the doctor that originally owned it had removed the dual exhaust system and replaced it with the standard single pipe system due to the noise level of the SE system.
I was away a lot of that time, attending school, attending the military and attending to the needs of a young man in the 60?s. I also owned and believed in the superiority of the several different Alfa Romeos that I owned at that time. The Jag was then a high mileage worn out car. It sat in the garage more and more, smoked more when it did run and slowly deteriorated. The leather seats dried out and cracked, the carburetor floats leaked & sank. Ultimately, it just sat in the garage and gathered dust. In 1976, my brothers & I rebuilt the engine and got it up and ready to go again. Unfortunately, at that time, there were few parts available for old cars like that and my father was not spending any of HIS money on that old car. So after it?s rebuild, it still sat in the garage and did not go out.
Ultimately, in 1988, my dad decided to sell the car. This was at nearly the peak in values for cars like this. My mother would have none of this! She insisted that I take the car, as I was the only one she knew that could take care of the car and make it better. (That?s when I found out that the car was titled to her!) At this point, the car needed a complete rebuild. It had been painted in 1956, Pontiac firemist green by it?s original owner and had early 60?s ?flight style? mirrors in place of the original fender mirrors. It was pretty sad looking. Over the following years, I freshened the engine, rebuilt all of the running gear, brakes, suspension, gearbox, replaced the interior and top etc. It has not had a frame-off restoration, It has had done what was needed to keep it operational and safe. The only work I did not do personally is spray the paint and do the upholstery work on the seats. All of its major parts are original; the engine, gearbox & chassis numbers match the both the number plate and the archival data from Jaguar. It?s bodywork and chrome is all original.
In the ten years that I have had the car operational, it has been driven to numerous vintage automotive events such as Watkins Glen vintage festival many times. The valley at Watkins, has echoed to the music of the Jag?s exhaust note at red line howling up the hill on the old course. Lime Rock Park in Connecticut has been visited for their vintage festival, where Burt Levy signed my copy of the Last Open Road. Now that I live in Florida, Sebring will be a stop on its agenda. Mostly however, it has been regularly and vigorously driven and enjoyed like any sports car should be.