Dry Building a 1952 Jaguar XK120 🔧 Workshop Diary 4 

I was blessed to own a 1953 XK 120 Fixed Head Coupe for 45 years. I bought it in 1974 for $450 in a disassembled state. My father took on the restoration project years later when he retired in 1982. Finding missing body and trim pieces was still possible then. Fortunately our car was rust free. The aluminum bonnet, boot lid, and doors were in decent shape, including the wood framing. As mentioned these cars were essentially hand made and the panel gaps and fitment were nowhere as precise as our featured car. The driving position was quite cramped for my 6’1” frame with the big wheel right in my chest. Ingress and egress was not particularly dignified. These ergonomic failings and quality lapses were quickly forgotten once motoring at speed while observing the world rushing towards one over that impossibly long sculpted hood. The split and canted windscreen, coupled with the agonizingly beautiful roofline and rear window reminded me of a Bugatti Atlantic coupe. This was the Worlds’ fastest production automobile in it’s day, and I spent a lot of time above 100 mph. One day while hooning through the Siskiyou mountains in southern Oregon at speed, I observed a then new Porsche Turbo approaching in the rear view mirror. The driver pulled alongside at 115 mph, gave me a salute, then disappeared in a whoosh into the thin mountain mists ahead. Two legendary automobiles from different eras had met at speed in the most remarkable setting. This is my most profound motoring memory in a lifetime of such pursuits.

What a show that was

I am sure the colour looks better in real life than the video, I would have used a vintage Jaguar colour

I do agree with you ! To me , the most beautiful car ever made ! I stood next to one as a 4 or 5 year old kid and the owner told me to touch it , run my hands over it and the curves were just special !

This entire episode, start to finish, was fascinating to me. Non-concours 140 owner.

Hi It’s was a Viva not a Vivo Cheers PS love your videos

Thanks for the tour. That ‘Vette!! ❤

Many thanks Richard, 👌,

I love Tvr, with the best color, thanks so much for the tour !!!

Wow , these guys are doing real great work 🇬🇧🙂👍

Awesome video Richard. Really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for sharing it. Cheers

Superb !

Beautiful. Beautiful. And beautiful. Even the Standard Atlas, which passed without mention. I wish there had been such enthusiasm for these British cars, at the time of their making. We would still have a motor industry.

As ever, thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to bring us all along on your work and recreation. So much to see! An absolute treat...

Vauxhall VIVA HA, good old British rust box, surprised it survived in Canardar.

The usual excellent video, thanks Richard!

I love these combo-type videos Richard! Keep up the quality work, your videos are always worth waiting for!!!

For sure they are a few shops or businesses out there on RU-vid.......but this one is up to snuff on details like almost nobody else. One can feel a lots o passsion and love flowing into the restauration projects ! Chears !!!

Another wonderful video from Richard. I particularly liked the black Jaguar Mark 7 at Heritage Acres, similar to a car I once owned to tow my racing motorcycles to circuits up and down the east coast of Australia.

The design of this Jag should be taught in schools of architecture. This is a dying art !

I realize this is likely heresy, but oh would I, and many others I think, love a full episode devoted to an MGA and its engine and suspension variants. For so many of us this was the car. Thank you for your marvelous videos and oh to live on Vancouver Island

Hi Richard, just seen the latest video,and,as ever, you've made a first-class job...you never cease to amaze me. Fantastic!

I am so jealous. I would love to have your job.......avocation or whatever you call it. So Cool.

Love your channel and have watched for a very long time, now the TWR XJS is a special built by Tom Wilkinshaw Racing. These were really serious cars! The TWR was a racing team starting out in the BTCC but eventually linking with jaguar themselves. They gave us the 220 - that car should be worshipped! How I wanted one of those! really quick!

My grandmother visited us in 1953/4 and we walked together into town,stopping at a toy shop as we did where she bought me a Dinky XK 120 in maroon,still think of that day and that car,

I remember seeing one or two around my home town back in the day.... sounded great too.

Vauxhall Viva ! my mum had one after she had to give the frogeye back to her brother : (

Richard, I just love your upload. That is a beautiful Jag, one of my favourites. Back in the day, I had a 63 Triumph TR3 which I had a love affair with; I was always working on it. Really enjoy your channel. Cheers!

I belong to a Men's Shed which is woodwork oriented. Coventry Woodworks Karen Trickett was so switched on - really. I've got to show this to some of the members.

Love the car Richard, but my Coventrinian heart was hurt by that pronunciation of Foleshill!!!! It's pronounced Fow-zill (first part sounds like "foal" without the "l"). We omit our "l"s and "h"s in Coventry.

The red Audi 5000 wagon at 2:50 reminded me of how much I liked those vehicles. They seem to have disappeared from the streets of Seattle probably due to maintenance costs. An exceptional vehicle in its time beginning (I think) in 1984. I bought an ‘85 with 30k miles in 1989 when due to the insane unintended acceleration lawsuit they were selling for 50¢ on the dollar.

I passed my driving test in a Vauxhall Viva late 60's very similar colour too. A decent vert basic daily driver back in the day.

Hi Richard! This is a really dream car, so beautiful painted, it's a masterpiece 👍. Best regards from Hans and Cheers 🍻🇦🇹.

Beautiful. Is that the same colour as LWK 707 (the XK120 that did '7 days and nights at 100 mph' at Montlhéry in '52)?

Hi Jason from Jetstream!

Like the 120 colour but can you please do that chip in your windscreen on the e type 😮

New windshield for you!

Wow. Richard you keep on amazing me time and time again LOL. What a car! I believe you are driving the original "Junk engine" XKE" "E-Type" daily that you built when I first started watching your channel! But I might be wrong about that I'm not sure but it is the same type of color etc from what my inexperienced eyes can see.

Hi Mike. You can pronounce the 'S' in Vanden Plas, it's Dutch, not French. Caught me out in the past. Hope you don't mind.

Richard really ! You must stop calling your "e"type the junk "e"type ! And l loved the local show . Lovely people , lovely location and of course wonderful cars ! That mk Vll was a hum dinger ! But l would have expected a manual . Apparently the early automatics if they were put in "park " on a hill they would jam in park and you simply couldn't select any gear! The garage had to come out and jack the rear up until the wheels were off the ground ......that must have been a fright in itself ! Thanks Richard . .....How rude of me ! I did'nt say terrific work on the 120 !!

Hi Richard, John from Brisbane Australia. Had to look up where Saanichton was! How long is the ferry ride from Vancouver?

It's a Vauxhall Viva, not Vivo, very popular cheap car in Britain in the 60's.

Nice video Richard. Your pronunciation of 'Foles Hill' as 'Foles shill' really threw me though. I live 40 minutes from Coventry and I thought where on earth is Foles Shill! I can learn you to speak proper English like Richard! :) The real Coventry locals actually pronounce it 'Fose Hill'. Bit of useless trivia to you in Canada.

Vauxhall Viva = Vauxhall Envoy in Canada

I think jag xk120 held a 24 hour record of a average speed of 100 miles pluse which it held for a few years just saying is it corect

And another thing! Modern language is metallic. 1960s it was opalescent. 1940/50s it was called “metalescent”

In the 90's I shared a lockup with a painter in North East UK a friend of his bought bought a supposedly rot free XK Jag out of a Texas scrapyard it turned out to be scrap the guy selling sent another car not 100% rot free I put a couple of patches around the rear side windows if I remember rightly . A few years later my nephew was in a punk/rock band that toured the US on of the places was a scrapyard in Texas he said the yard was 3 miles long , he said they had drag races in the place during the gig he showed me some pictures must have been one hell of a night a LOL .

Jaguar drivers club get in touch with them

thanks for the tour RMO. Anyone know what color that corvette is in at the 8:21 mark?

They produced a MGB GT V8. Only made 1.700 I believe. Never seen a converabile version. Maybe Export.

Heartbreaking stone chip on your car’s screen Richard, I guess you can’t afford to just change it every time, could you maybe get it gel mended in the meantime?

A drop of superglue on your windscreen will fill the cracks

The Brits were very good chassis and engine designers, but when you look at how that body goes together it’s not hard to understand why their native automotive industry hit hard times. Neat car, but God it would be insanely labor intensive to build.

john player colours on the lotus

Richard, could you please send me a mail. Thank you.

Also not a huge fan of the colour, it apes some of the less aesthetically pleasing colours appearing in the UK on new cars. As someone said the car was a vauxhall viva my uncle had a new one which he let me drive. No seat belts, no weight and massively over served brakes. A gentle press on the pedal resulted in almost joining the windscreen on first acquaintance. Keep up the good work

jag should of been cream

Fabulous work, Richard. The 120 is indescribably beautiful.