1954 Jaguar XK120 SE Pininfarina
Words: Mike Ryan
Photos: Classic Motor Cars Limited and Pebble Beach Concours
RETRO REVIEW – this article originally appeared in JUST CARS No.262 – November, 2017
Pininfarina is best known for their long-running association with Ferrari, but not all the work from this Italian coachbuilding and styling firm has been devoted to the vehicles from Maranello.
Past Pininfarina styling creations include production models for Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Fiat and Maserati, to name a few, while one-offs and concepts were produced for Honda, Bentley, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, Opel and Audi, as well as virtually every Italian carmaker.
In terms of British cars, the Italian firm’s best-known work was restyling the late-1950s Austin A40, which led to it carrying the unofficial ‘Farina’ tag (reflecting the time before the company was renamed ‘Pininfarina’ in the early 1960s).
For Jaguar, Pininfarina applied a restyle to the Series 3 version of the XJ6 saloon in 1978, and also produced a one-off ‘XJ Spider’ concept based on the E-type in the same year, but the Jaguar connection was actually established more than two decades earlier.
An XK for Max
Back in 1954, Pininfarina was commissioned by Max Hoffman to rebody an XK120 SE. Exactly why Hoffman did this is unknown, but it was only one of many initiatives the automotive entrepreneur undertook.
Austrian by birth, Hoffman was involved with automobiles from a young age, first as a racer, then working for an importer bringing American and Italian cars to Austria.
In the late 1930s, Hoffman set up his own import firm, focusing mainly on high-end English cars like Rolls-Royce and Bentley, but he also brought the likes of Alfa Romeo and Delahaye to Austria and was Volvo’s first sales agent outside Sweden.
Finding himself in Paris at the outbreak of World War II, Hoffman emigrated to the USA, where he made a fortune producing costume jewellery. In 1947, Hoffman returned to what he knew best, establishing the ‘Hoffman Motor Car Company’ in one of the wealthier areas of Manhattan, with the goal of bringing English and European automobiles to a car-hungry American market.
Hoffman would acquire sole US distribution rights for a number of major car brands in the years that followed and Jaguar was the first, starting in 1950, followed by Volkswagen, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz. Others would follow, including BMW, for whom Hoffman held sole US distribution rights until 1975.
As mentioned, Hoffman’s motives for commissioning the one-off Jaguar are unknown, but it’s assumed he’d use the rebodied XK120 to drive showroom traffic and possibly tempt his customers to trade up from standard cars to more luxurious – and profitable - coachbuilt exotics.
European Tour, then Mystery Tour
Already a beautiful car in its stock form, there really wasn’t much Pininfarina could do to improve the lines of the XK120, so instead they looked at making the car more ‘individual’.
While the front end is familiar, albeit with more prominent front guards, a distinctive bumper treatment and one-piece windscreen (a feature never offered on the XK120, or the XK140 that followed), Pininfarina’s changes to the roofline and back end make it unrecognisable as a Jaguar.
Pininfarina’s craftsmen added a number of bespoke elements, too, so things like the glass area, chrome trim and tail lights were all unique to the vehicle.
The completed XK120 SE made its public debut at the 1955 Geneva Motor Show. An appearance at the Autocar London Motor Show followed, but a planned display at Turin’s Motor Show was cancelled, as the car had found an owner by this stage who wanted to take delivery of it.
From there, the history of this one-off gets a lot murkier. Exactly who bought the car, where it went and what they did with it is unknown. What is known is that the one-off Jaguar made its way to the US at some stage, as that’s where a German car enthusiast found it in 1978.
Plans to restore the Jaguar never came to fruition, so that enthusiast eventually sold it to Classic Motor Cars (CMC) in 2015.
Already known for their restoration and modernisation work with classic Jaguars, the Pininfarina XK120 was a good fit for the English company, but bringing this particular Jag back to life would bring a mountain of challenges.
David Barzilay, Chairman of CMC’s operating board, explained: “There is little trace of the car’s history, but we are certain that Hoffman was the supplying dealer, then first owner of the car and that there was only one XK120 by Pininfarina produced, which makes this one of the rarest Jaguars in existence.
New Heart, New Body, New Sparkle
When CMC stripped down the car, they found that Pininfarina had built over much of the original XK120 body, rather than starting from scratch on a bare chassis. That didn’t make the restoration any easier, though.
Many panels were simply unusable and would have to be replaced. These included both rear quarters and the entire front end of the car, as well as the door skins, boot floor and inner arches.
The car’s 3.4-litre straight six engine was completely rebuilt, as was the 4-speed manual gearbox. Being an ‘SE’, this engine carried the C-Type head which produced more power than the stock 3.4 six – 180hp (134kW) versus 160hp (119kW).
Missing exterior parts and interior trimming didn’t help the restoration process either: “Some of the original parts were impossible to find, so we had to remake items such as the bumpers and chrome work by hand from photographs,” Barzilay explained.
“We had to scan the front and rear end of the car and make mock ups of the lights, which were then scanned and 3D printed. Smaller missing parts were also 3D printed in-house.”
Also missing from the car when purchased was the rear windscreen, so CMC scanned the window aperture and used that data to get a new rear screen made.
Colour Theory
As purchased by CMC, the XK120 SE was painted burgundy and had tan leather seat trim. CMC were unsure if either of these were the originals produced by Pininfarina, as no data or factory records were available.
Photographs of the car from 1955 do exist, but they’re all black and white, which made confirmation of the paint colour impossible. But CMC got lucky, literally at the last stage of the vehicle’s tear down.
“It all came down to the last nut and bolt,” Barzilay said. “When the front screen was removed, we discovered a small section of original paint and used it as a colour match.”
That paint wasn’t burgundy, but a somewhat dull grey-olive green. As shown on the finished car, it’s not particularly striking, but has a subtlety and elegance that Hoffman was presumably hoping to achieve when he commissioned the build.
We [also] discovered a small sample of original Ochre tan leather when we stripped the car down. This was colour matched and the original type and colour leather was used to recreate the interior.”
With the seats, dash and even window surrounds trimmed in this material, it lends the interior an earthy feel and is actually a good match to the exterior colour.
The car’s carpets and door trims were missing entirely, so CMC chose a carpet colour to complement the leather trimming, but had to be more creative with the door cards. With no photos to guide them, the CMC team looked at other Pininfarina cars from the same period and used those designs as a basis for the shape and pattern they applied to the Jaguar.
Finished and ‘Pebbled’
Completing the restoration of this one-off took CMC 6,725 hours – which equates to almost ten months of around-the-clock work. Without the assistance of modern technology, like 3D printing, the build would have no doubt taken even longer.
To unveil the completed car, CMC chose one of the world’s most prestigious classic car concours events - the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California.
Up against some of the most elite, exclusive – and expensive – classic cars in the world, the 1954 Jaguar XK120 SE Pininfarina won second place in its class (O-2 Postwar Closed), which the CMC team were more than happy with.
“A great result! It was a privilege to take the cover off this long-lost Jaguar at one of the most important Concours in the world,” said Peter Neumark, Chairman of the Employee Ownership Trust that runs CMC.
“The car was admired all day and we are delighted to be bringing a trophy home as a further testimony to the skills, dedication and attention to detail that we have in our business."
Find more on CMC’s work at: https://www.classic-motor-cars.co.uk/
1954 Jaguar XK120 SE Pininfarina – key restoration points
- Full body restoration including complete new front end, new rear quarter panels, inner arch panels, boot floor, sills and door skins
- Full chassis repair and repaint
- Front and rear bumpers remade
- 80% of the original chrome work remade
- Rear screen and screen surround remade
- Full interior re-trim
- Full engine and gearbox rebuild [XK 120 3.4 SE (C-Type Head) straight six, double SU H6 carburettor, 180hp (134kW) @ 5300 rpm]
- Suspension components refurbished
- Completed to original Jaguar equipment specification
