One of the first to roll off the assembly line, it was hand beaten aluminum instead of pressed, because the demand for the new body style was so great.
This one was bought by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner at the time, Anton Hulman, while the actor was in town filming To Please A Woman. He would keep it stored there at the race track, and amazingly, the car would only see use once a year in May when Gable would come back into town to see the race.
It has only been driven 6500 miles
Full gallery and article at http://petrolicious.com/we-discover-clark-gable-s-jaguar-xk120-hidden-beneath-the-brickyard
Beautiful car! Unfortunately there are a few glaring errors in the restoration, and this one has definitely been restored, though apparently not by a Jaguar specialist.. Since I sold my 120 close to 20 years ago and divested myself of the other Jaguars during that span, I no longer have my comprehensive library of Jaguar facts, so I cannot quote serial numbers.
ReplyDeleteMost obvious, this car had the later faired in side lights (early cars were chrome affairs), but it has the early cam covers without the front stud. I do not believe those two features were ever found together. It also has the later, short stalk rear view mirror, and it is definitely not an aluminum body car. there were distinct differences between the aluminum and later steel bodied cars around the windscreen. BTW, ALL 120s had aluminum door skins, bonnet and boot lids.
Once again a beautiful car that would be perfect with just a few minor corrections.
they restored a car with only 6500 miles on it? Well, I suppose they must have to make it look this new. As for the rest... well, Petrolicious rarely makes that many mistakes in their reporting, so, perhaps they were led astray by whoever wanted free publicity, and is now going to get it's prices up in an auction since it's been so widely seen online. A lot of people only will let their prize cars get photographed and published before an auction or sale so they can get more potential interested buyers to come look for it, and drive the bids up.
DeleteThe movie was called TO PLEASE A LADY,it really holds up well if your interested in 40s race cars,I watched it on YOU TUBE recently.
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