Road Test Report

Anthony Parkinson commissioned an uprated Jaguar XK120; it pretty much looks the same as the original, and sounds similar on start up, but wow does it go!

Classic Cars Magazine November 2001
Words: David Lillywhite
Photography: Malcolm Griffiths.

Several decades ago, Road & Track magazine's Dick O'Kane wrote that the XK120 is 'a machine to challenge all the gods and poets... sometimes.' If you've ever driven one, you'll understand immediately, because it is surely one of the most beautiful cars ever built. But it often frustrates with overheating, cantankerous gear shifting, poor brakes, and a grotesquely uncomfortable cabin. It's like expecting a gorgeous woman to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, only for her to belch instead.

So ever since, owners, enthusiasts and specialists have fallen over themselves to improve upon the basic design. Sure enough, Jaguar moved the dynamics on in leaps and bounds with the XK140 and 150, but neither came close to the sublime 120 for sheer blood--curdlingly good looks.

This is one of those interpretations on the XK120, it hardly stray from the original design, but there are enough clever, subtle detail changes to improve the driving and ownership pleasure two-fold. It was built in Derbyshire by Jaguar specialist Derek to the order, of Anthony Parkinson, the American behind the famed Vicarage Jaguars of the late Eighties and early Nineties. If you want one the same it will cost You £85,000 plus \AT. We'll let Tony explain why lie wanted it that badly.

'I love the XK120 - it's a magnificent, stately looking car,' he says. 'But I wondered how I could get more pleasure from one without making it boy racer, keeping the charm and the elegance but making it as quick and exciting as it looks. I started to build it as a track car, but it turned out to be a) more expensive and b) so nice that it's not a track car any more. It's a car that I could use everyday should l want to.'

And that's true, because this is one accommodating XK. Jump in and the first thing anyone taller than 5ft 10in will be relieved to discover is that the seats - XK150 racing buckets - have been made to slide just a few inches further back. They're spot-on for a six-footer now, with the back of the seat just nudging under the cockpit rail when the hood's removed. If you're taller, then there's the more drastic option of chopping back a bit of the bodywork.

Some aspects of the seating just can't be changed though, and you wouldn't want them any different. Like when you open the low-slung door, only to be reminded that in XK's floor is almost at knee height, and the seat a good few inches above that; you sit stretched out in a typical sports car position albeit a good foot higher than you'd expect. But in this car, the steering wheel isn't uncomfortably close to your chest and thighs, in that curiously vintage driving position that the 120 is famous for.

No, in this XK the steering wheel is an inch smaller in diameter than standard (at 16 inches) and two inches further forward. It's hard to see why Jaguar couldn't have achieved this on the standard model, but here the original steering box has been substituted for the lighter, more accurate charms of an XK150 rack-and-pinion set-up. Okay, the wheels on the wrong side of the car, but we can blame that on Tony's desire to ship the car back to the States later this year.

So you get yourself comfy, strap yourself in with those super-trick inertia reel harnesses - -flick a switch and the inertia's lock - and fire up the engine. For all the modern technology here, you still hive the perverse pleasure of pressing a starter button to turn the engine. Twisting a key just wouldn't be the same.

The reward for your fingerwork is a light tappety growl sneaking out through the smart new bonnet louvres. It's the unmistakable sound of the sublime XK motor, thank goodness - you really musn't rip the very heart out of even the most modified XK120.

Of course, this is no ordinary XK engine. It's actually a 4.2-Iitre from a 420 saloon, running on triple 2in gas flowed SU carburettors and kitted out with lightweight X16 short skirt pistons, a gas flowed big-valve cylinder head, Piper fast road camshafts and a lightened flywheel for much improved response and revability. K&N air filters and a JP sports exhaust deal with the breathing processes.

The engine-actually sits three-quarters-of-an-inch lower than standard to give clearance to the front carburettor, though you'd never notice. But the power figures prove how different it actually is, with 230bhp and 268lb ft of torque comparing admirably with the original's 160bhp and 195lb ft. This is going to be quite a ride, but only once we've settled one big question: bow in the hell does a more powerful engine stay cool in a car already on the cooling limit (as many a Stateside customer found So years ago)?

The answer sits neatly in front of the engine in the shape of an unsettlingly sexy-looking aluminium radiator. A slimline fan clings unobtrusively to its underside (for its canted back at quite an angle), and a lightweight high -efficiency water pump and an oil-to-water intercooler sandwiched between the oil filter housing and modern spin on filter help the cause.

And had you spotted that the usual footwell vents just ahead of the doors are facing the wrong way? That's because they now vent hot air out mustn't of the engine bay aided by a venturi effect that also helps to draw air into the engine bay through the front grille and louvres.

As for the footwells, they're cooler now, because they're no longer heated by an over-hot engine bay. The vents never did a lot anyway, and there's certainly no sign of the footwells or the engine overheating, even on our long runs through the Peak District on what has so tar proved to be the hottest day of the year.

Pootling through towns and past A-road speed cameras, mindful of the area's speed-monitoring helicopter too, the XK is as docile as you could ask for. Tony and Derek have been careful not to lose any of the low-down torque of the original engine in their quest for more power, and it always settles back to a neat idle, helped no doubt by the Aldon electronic ignition.

But when those all-too-rare chances to boot the thing come along, boy does it go! Up to about 3000rpm it feels as 'normal' as an XK engine can feel; above that the full effect of the camshafts comes into play. The revs soar to the 6000rpm redline - and beyond if you're not concentrating - transforming the XK from nice old sports car to outrageous projectile, seemingly without effort. When Tony tells stories of out gunning E -types and XK8s on the recent Entente Cordial Jaguar run through France, you know he's not exaggerating.

In fact, the 0-60mph acceleration time is, estimated to be about six seconds, while the top speed is theoretically well over 150mph. Of course, aerodynamics come into play, but with aeroscreens it should just nudge 150, and with the full screen it will be closer to 145mph. It's already been past 130mph on a relatively tight engine...

Of course, the E-type managed 150mph too, albeit in rather false conditions, but the XK's task is made easier by the welcome addition of a modern five-speed gearbox, based around the super-tough Borg-Warner T5. Say goodbye, to the infamously slow-changing Moss 'box' it won't be missed by many. Anyway, the gearknob still shows the original four-speed, and the only sign of' anything amiss is that the gear-lever is ever-so-slightly cranked to keep it within the driver's reach.

It would take a serious purist to object to that gearbox, and it leaves the less experienced, or simply occasional, XK driver to concentrate on the road rather than the gear changing. And when you're doing that, you'll be amazed at how well the car copes with its new-found power and torque, considering that the suspension has received only detail changes.

All extra leaf in the semi-elliptic springs, and fine-tuning of the adjustable Spax dampers -telescopic in place of the old lever arms - his eliminated the car's early tendencies to squat down excessively at the back under hard acceleration. Neoprene suspension bushes help no end, and a simple beefing-up of the chassis must contribute. All that Derek's team has done is double up on the number of welds used on the chassis, and used large steel plates to beef up the one known chassis weak spot, where the lever -arm dampers were once mounted.

The feel from the front wheels is just spot on too, to the extent that you know exactly where you're heading and at what point you're going to stop going that way. The steering rack is so much more accurate than the original box, and uprated front coil springs and Koni telescopic dampers with an XK150 anti-roll bar work wonders through the corners.

You can sear through the twisties as if you're in a car half the size, revelling in the power and oblivious to the work going oil inside the rear axle as the new limited slip differential doles out the power, without upsetting the handling. Then, when the going gets tough, the tough brakes stop it going, hauling what is quite a heavy machine up with so little drama that after a while you even stop thinking about them. It's only when you peer through the wheel spokes that you realise what's going on, with the original's big old Lockheed drums replaced by vented discs and four-pot XJS calipers at the front, solid discs and XJ6 calipers rear, with XK150 handbrake calipers adding a helping hand at standstill. With the assistance of a remote servo, there's little you can do to faze these brakes.

I know this because I drove for miles, through every kind of' terrain, and only one kind of- weather - very sunny. It felt as though I was living a charmed life, not just because of the weather, but because I was in an XK120 that required so little effort to drive fast and smoothly in total comfort and with only the occasional glance at the temperature gauge. A modern alternator and solid state Facet fuel pump boosts reliability too.

Longer term, Tony will be able to relax in the knowledge that his car is rust-free, extensively restored and rebuilt, and protected with gallons of rustproofing wax. It's actually the body that will have accounted for most of the car's price tag, not the modifications alone. Look closely for imperfections in the XK150 shade of Indigo Blue, and the only fault you'll spot is a slightly awkward fit to the trailing edge of the bonnet -- and that's because we interrupted the final few tweaks for our road test and photographs.

Best of all, though, is that there's no question of the gung-ho character of the XK120 having been lost in any of its modifications; that just wasn't an option for any of the team involved. They reckon, and it would be hard to disagree, that the standard XK120, is a great car, but that this is how Jaguar would have made it given the time and cash for further development. If only it was possible to hand it back to Road & Track's Dick Mane O'Kane, to confirm that this XK really can now challenge the gods and the poets on a more consistent basis.