CarBrandLogos archive · Jaguar · 1948

JaguarXK120

Built to show off an engine, and accidentally the fastest thing you could buy.

Photo: Alexander Migl · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Jaguar history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Jaguar XK120, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Jaguar's XK twin-cam six was designed for a saloon that was not ready. To keep the engine in front of the public, Lyons had a two-seater body run up for the 1948 London motor show — a short, curved aluminium shape drawn largely by his own eye — and put it on a shortened saloon chassis. The plan was to build a couple of hundred as a showcase.

1950 Jaguar XK120 interior · No machine-readable author provided. Sfoskett~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

The reaction ended that plan. Orders arrived in numbers Jaguar could not meet with hand-formed aluminium panels, and from 1950 the body was pressed in steel. In total 12,055 were built to 1954, the great majority exported, most of those to the United States, where the XK120 established Jaguar as a serious manufacturer rather than a curiosity.

Jaguar XK120 Supersonic 1954 red vr TCE · Stahlkocher · CC BY-SA 3.0

Jaguar XK 120, Bj. 1953, Nürb'ring Südschleife

In production

The name was a claim: 120 mph. Jaguar proved it on a closed road at Jabbeke in Belgium, and then made the point differently by running a car at Montlhéry for a week at an average of over 100 mph. For a car costing well under half what an Aston Martin or a Ferrari asked, that was extraordinary.

Jaguar XK 120, Bj. 1953, Nürb'ring Südschleife · Spurzem - Lothar Spurzem · CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Legacy

Racing followed almost immediately — a win at Silverstone in 1949 with Leslie Johnson driving, class success at Le Mans, and Stirling Moss's victory in the wet in the 1950 Tourist Trophy. The competition programme led directly to the C-Type, which won Le Mans in 1951 and 1953, and to the D-Type after it.

Chapter 5

Fixed-head and drophead coupés joined the open two-seater, and the XK140 and XK150 followed with more power and more comfort, but the 120 remains the purest of the family: the car that paid for Browns Lane and set the pattern Jaguar would follow for the next fifty years — fast, beautiful, and priced to undercut everything it embarrassed.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1948–1954

Engine

3.4&nbsp

Body

open two-seater

Technical specification

The XK120, in detail.

Production: 1948–1954; 12,055 made
Class: Sports car
Body style: open two-seater; 2-seat fixed head coupé; 2-seat drophead coupé
Layout: FR layout
Engine: 3.4 L XK I6
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Assembly: United Kingdom: Holbrook Lane, Coventry (1948–1951); United Kingdom: Browns Lane, Coventry (1951–1954)
Manufacturer: Jaguar Cars