In my humble opinion, life is too short to paint your Jaguar XK120 in a boring color!
Like most people, I think, I would have loved to paint my 1953 XK120 FHC in its original color: Suede green with suede green interior. But I have worked previously on several suede green cars and to me, it’s a depressing color to have outside and inside the car. Even Battleship grey seems exciting compared to it. Because the restoration of my car is not going at the speed of light, I had a lot of time to consider what color to paint it.
Even though I was going to change the color, I wanted to stick to a combination available from the factory when the car was new. My first thought was black with old red interior. Then I realized that black is hard to keep clean and the bodywork has to be absolutely perfect to paint a car black. One day, the friend running the body shop next to my own upholstery shop was painting a car, not a Jaguar, in the most beautiful shade of Old English white and I asked him to paint me a piece of metal that color so I could pair it with red interior materials. I played with this idea for a long time. Until I saw a picture on the internet of a dark grey metallic fixed head coupe just like mine. I started looking at paint chips and that was it. At least, I was always consistent with the interior color, Jaguar Old Red. I considered for a moment using Jaguar Magnolia, just because I have several hides and a roll of imported correct vinyl in that shade, but again the difficulty to keep such a color clean stopped me, especially for the carpet.
So after years of painful indecision, I settled for Gunmetal for the body, with old red interior and red wire wheels. I know I won’t change my mind now, since I painted the engine compartment and started making my own interior in red. So, I’m at peace with my choice. There is a never ending debate regarding how original a car should be, and I admire and respect owners who go to the greatest lengths to stick to originality, which is neither an easy nor economical thing to do. And I try to keep my car as close as possible to original, and so far I’m not doing too badly, despite the fact that my car was “updated” with an XK140 engine and a factory replacement new cylinder head (no markings or numbers of any sort on the head).
But Suede green just didn’t work for me. I’m sure I’m not the only one to have gone through such a dilemma, and I would love for others to tell the story behind the change of color of their Jaguar.
Birch grey is my car’s factory colour and I was recoiling from it at first but with the red/biscuit interior I feel it will look good. I’ve recently decided a set of faux dunlop rims painted red for track days will add to my amusement.
As far as choice goes, if it isn’t making YOU happy, whats the point?!
My 1954 drophead was white, and when it came time to paint the car, red was chosen and it was the best choice I ever made for the car. It brings out the lines and draws attention to the car.
“As far as choice goes, if it isn’t making YOU happy, whats the point?!”
True up to a point. If you painted a '68 Shelby in a non-original color, you would receive constant negative comments and critiques. While the color itself might make you happy, the negativity from others likely wouldn’t. My “other classic” is a '68 GT500KR in original yellow - one of the first questions I get asked is “is that the original factory color?”.
The good news is that the stigma definitely doesn’t seems to attach to XK’s (and perhaps Jags in general). My '53 XK120 FHC was born birch grey, but was red when I bought her, and I have a hard time imaging her a different color…
Saying that… I do like original, and I do like yellow - and it turns out there were just three XK120’s in factory yellow. I tracked one down in England as recently as 2019, but the trail went cold. Still keeping an eye out, that yellow OTS in my “unicorn” XK120… or maybe I will wind up re-restoring my FHC and painting her Francochamps yellow - who knows? 
Chris.
And I would all tell threm to go suck an egg!
When people would critique the Jaguar and its Wild Plum purple, I would tell them, “when you get your own Jaguar, you can paint it any damn color you want.”
Gray is making a comeback. Been seeing new cars in gray on the road.
Paint it red, and have people think its a Ferrari.
Or, as a dear old Cornish friend would say:
“Tell 'em b-ll-cks, boy” *
My car, my colour. And engine. And chassis.
*to be completely authentic to the Westcountry, the vowel sound in “boy” should be pronounced as in “tight”
Each to his own… Suede Green is my favourite colour on a 120! Followed by Bronze (which is the original on my car). Literally every time I take it out people say “I love the colour - what is it?” “Jaguar Bronze, quite common on the early cars,” I reply.
Good philosophy - the best colour for your car is the one that pleases you
Grey is the most dangerous color imo
“Road colored” is what I call them, after one nearly killed me in an overtaking manouver
Luckily the Jags have prominent chrome front parts
paint it yellow 
M own choice of Pastel blue. It was an automatic car in white, with a bad, non original wngine, so no need to worry about upgrades. It now has 3,8 with twin 2” carbs, Toyota Supra 5 speed box. (the colour is from a Renault or Peugeot, if I remember correctly)
Pastel Green is nice, too!
If not exciting, Battleship Grey can sometimes be quite entertaining, to me anyway.
Here’s how it looks, a couple of weeks ago.
This is the same exact car, on the same day, in the same place, after the clouds had gone away and the sunlight became brighter. Under this lighting, the car now looks like a much lighter shade of gray.
My XK140 OTS was originally Arbor Green a very 50’s color with black interior I debated long an hard about what to do, if I were to ever sell it there would be two comments about the car; too bad it’s not the original color and too bad it is the original color so I went with what I wanted BRG w/ Black.
Hi,
IMO the factory never had any boring colours, only subtle colours to best suit their products, at the time, they represent a bygone era. YMMV.
Cheers!
May have also been a product of the materials that were available at the time.
Hi,
For MKIV and MKV & XK120 for sure, but it was a design desicion as well, proven by the fact that the XK120 was available in red, but the MKV wasn’t.
By 1961 (E-type & MKX) there was no shortage of synthetic pigments and paint formulas.
Cheers!