The very early XK120’s were so highly desired that they tended to be assigned to famous people or for competition work. Built on the 19th October 1950 and shipped to Charles Hornburg the LA distributor chassis 670982 led an interesting life being pressed into competition work under the experienced and successful racer M B Mendelson within the Sports Car Club of America.

My early life was spent in the small midland town of Lutterworth and a few miles away was Husbands Bosworth, the home of Jaguar Dealer Protheroe. Ex RAF Pilot Dick Protheroe based from this location went on to become one of the most significant names in Jaguar racing history most notably for his racing exploits in the CUT registration number series of Jaguar E Types. The story is well known and I shall not dwell on that. My personal friendship with one of his senior race engineers Pat Wells is such that when I was asked to consign this car for sale he was my first ‘go to’ and these period racing photos of 2 of Protheroe’s car come from Pat who has forgotten more than I shall ever know about Dick Protheroe. All I can say is I wish I had been part of that time and been involved in the Protheroe story.

This XK120 is built as an FIAHTP authorised engineering tribute to Protheroe’s late 1950’s racing XK120’s seen in these photos. It was created using the returning XK120 that had been the steed of M B Mendelson racing in the USA in the early 1950’ s. Moreover it was built by another famous name in period Jaguar racing. Tester was a tuning specialist back in the day and this car comes from the same bloodline and is built in the spirit of the day to be light and powerful with every attention to performance and engineering improvements of the period to create a car to win.

The car is based around an all alloy body shell and a bare chassis restoration to create the ultimate race qualifying road car in the spirit of the day to drive your car to the track, race hard and drive home hopefully with a trophy! That essence is well achieved in this excellent piece of engineering. The buyer of this car can have everything one could ever want from a Jaguar XK120.

Race Car? ‘Yes’. FIAHTP papers to 2029 authorised to run with other cars of the late 1950’s in modified class. Aero screens, removable roll cage OR windscreen with removable hardtop. You can choose. Spare set of racing wheels and tyres too.

Road Car? ‘Yes’. The car has a full weather set up with soft top, tonneau, side screens to offer possibly the fastest road going XK available today with in the region of 275bhp supplied with very compliant road manners and that raucous exhaust note revealing itself via the side mounted exhaust.

It’s a masterful piece of engineering built with passion and care at huge cost far in excess of the asking price with as much attention to detail as one could have when trying to replicate a car from over 60years ago. The car gives optimum flexibility to give a new owner the option to race or have the best sounding fastest XK on the road today. All options are covered with this XK120. Whatever you choose, this is a thrilling car.