1952 Jaguar XK120 Fixed Head Coupe
When William Lyons shaped the XK120 body in under two weeks in 1948, he produced one of the defining silhouettes of postwar motoring.
The Fixed Head Coupe, introduced in 1951 as the second of three body styles, added a fastback roofline that gave the car a more formal presence without sacrificing the long hood and flowing rear fenders of the original roadster.
Beneath that shapely steel body (over an ash wood frame) sits Jaguar’s 3,442cc twin-overhead-camshaft inline six, fed by twin SU carburetors and producing 160 bhp at 5,000 rpm in standard form.
A four-speed manual gearbox and torsion bar front suspension completed a package that offered a combination of performance and refinement with few rivals at any price in the early 1950s.
The XK120 debuted at the 1948 Earls Court Motor Show as the fastest production car in the world, a claim backed up in 1949 when a mildly tuned example reached 132.6 mph on a closed section of highway near Jabbeke, Belgium.
A total of 2,477 Fixed Head Coupes were built between 1951 and 1954 (the least common of the three XK120 variants), and the model’s platform and engine served as the direct foundation for Jaguar’s legendary C-Type racing program.
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