A dozen examples of one of the fastest, rorty-est, rarest – and at $2-million or so nowadays, priciest – British sports cars of the 1950s, Jaguar's XKSS, turned up at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance on the Monterey Peninsula this past summer.
One was once owned by actor Steve McQueen, who regularly took it for tire-howling, exhaust-ripping regular runs on Los Angeles's winding Mullholand Drive.
Only 16 XKSSs – road cars made out of leftover Le Mans-dominating D-Type racing cars – were constructed before a disastrous fire at the factory early in 1957 ended the project. One remained in Britain, one went to Hong Kong, two apparently came to Canada and the remaining 12 to the United States, where in 1958 one caught the eye of the newly popular actor.
McQueen was by then enjoying the success of his new TV western, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and bought the white with red leather interior car, for a reported $5,000. He had it repainted in British Racing Green and re-upholstered in black and promptly went out and acquired so many speeding tickets in it he almost lost his licence.
On one occasion, so the story goes, after being stopped he explained to the officer he was rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital to deliver their baby, and not only dodged the ticket but got a police escort to a nearby hospital. His wife Neile, only six months pregnant at the time, was apparently less than amused.
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Back in 1957 |
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Racing legend Juan Manuel Fangio wins his fifth – and fourth in a row – World Driving championship, winning four Grand Prix events in his Maserati. |
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Elvis Presley buys his Graceland mansion in Memphis, possibly with cash generated by his new movie Jailhouse Rock. |
The XKSS continued to amuse McQueen, however, despite his acquisition of other fast toys – at the time of his death in 1980 he owned 133 motorcycles and 35 cars – although he did sell the Jaguar to the Bill Harrah collection in Reno in the early 1970s, re-acquiring it some time later. It's currently owned by the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, which dusted it off to make up an even XKSS dozen at Pebble Beach event and help Jaguar celebrate its 75th anniversary.
The XKSS story begins with the arrival in the late 1940s of Jaguar's legendary twin-cam inline-six-cylinder engine and the XK120 sports car. It was sexy-looking and fast, but Jaguar was soon eyeing the Le Mans 24-hour race and, to have any chance to win it, needed a "real" racing car, which came along in the form of the curvaceous, lightweight, tube-framed C-type of 1951.
The 3.4-litre, 200-hp, 144-mph (232-km/h) C-type won the classic French race that year, failed to do so in 1952, but won it again in 1953.
It was replaced by the D-type, which was introduced in prototype form in 1954 and is easily one of the most beautiful racing cars ever built with its voluptuously aero bodywork, set off by a faired-in headrest. It didn't win that first year, but would go on to win Le Mans three times straight in 1955, 1956 and 1957.
The Le Mans-winning D-type of 1955, now with a fin behind the driver's head, was built around a central monocoque fabricated from magnesium with tubular structures at each end. It had independent front and trailing arm live rear axle suspension and was fitted with Girling disc brakes and Dunlop light alloy wheels. Its dry-sump, 3.4-litre engine, fitted with three Weber carbs, made 285 hp at 5,750 rpm and it had a four-speed gearbox to help propel its 1,930 lbs to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 4.2 seconds and to a top speed of more than 175 mph (282 km/h).
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This spec would be good enough to win one of the world's toughest motor races on the trot and spawn one of its most sensational street cars, the XKSS.
The XKSS was conceived as a way to use up unsold D-Type monocoques and give Americans another excuse to buy a Jag. Particularly those who might want to go C- Production class (for road legal cars) racing with an unfair advantage – which the racer-based XKSS could provide for $6,900.
It was almost identical in mechanical spec to the "customer" D-types with a 250-hp engine (its muffler tucked under the left-side door), but the bodywork was modified with the elimination of the tailfin and the addition of a second door and a tall wrap-around windshield, fully instrumented dash, tiny bumpers and turn signals added. Other civilian items included a rudimentary canvas top and an external rack to which you could strap any luggage you might want to take along.
You'd want to tie it on tight, though, as the XKSS could hit 60 mph in 5.2 seconds on its way to a max of 66 mph (106 km/h) in first gear, then 85 mph (136 km/h) in second, 109 mph (175 km/h) in third and 144 mph (232 km/h) in top – or 160 mph (260 km/h) on the optional "tall" rear axle ratio. Incredible street-car performance numbers for the time.
Only 71 D-Types and 16 XKSSs were built in total; they provided technical knowledge and inspiration for the sensational E-Type that would arrive in 1961.
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