New to me XK140 MC OTS

I just acquired my first XK, a 1957 XK140 MC OTS and want to share my joy!
It’s my 3rd Jaguar, the prior two being Series 1 E-Types over the past 30 years. I’ve long admired XK’s and came close to buying one on one or two occasions. Along the way, I’ve learned that at 6’3" I really don’t fit in a 120, and that I prefer the 120/140 swoopy fender lines to the 150. I love the roadsters and am a bit of a performance junkie, so for me an XK-140 MC OTS it had to be.

The car looked great in pictures. The owner is a fastidious engineer who purchased the car in 1979 from its original owner and has babied it ever since. In the 1990’s it received a respray in its original color of British Racing Green and the interior was also retrimmed. I flew out to inspect it last Saturday and naturally was a little tenuous. Would the car be as good as it looked in the pictures? I’ve never been in a 140, would I fit? Would I enjoy driving it, or would it just be too “truckish” for me? The owner and his wife were very nice and after a brief chit chat we went into the garage… my jaw just about hit the floor. The car was absolutely stunning! Body gaps perfect, no rust, nicely worn patina to the interior. With the exception of a very minor scratch here or there the paint was perfect. Engine numbers match the build plate, and the chassis and head numbers both contain the appropriate “S” markings. Compression was 150 down the line. My magnetic “rustometer” found no hidden bondo, but it did detect the alloy doors, hood, and trunk. It was time for the test drive. I was pleased that once seated I actually had sufficient leg room. It fired right up and sounded great. Even though we were going easy as it warmed up, the engine immediately felt powerful and pulled smoothly. The drum brakes require a bit more pressure than I am used to but do the job quite adequately, pulling the car down nice and straight. Steering is tight and direct with no slop. The car handles quite nicely and is a truly pleasure to drive. The non-synchro first makes a wonderful gear whine and is easy to operate if you are patient and deliberate. Once it was up to temp I gave it the beans and was duly impressed. This car must have just blown people away in the '50’s. So it was time for the moment of truth: The car was way better than expected, I actually fit, I really enjoyed driving it, the owner was wonderful, and the price was right. I couldn’t not buy it!

It arrived at home yesterday. I went over all the systems again then took it out for a ride. What a pleasure!
I then spent a few hours with it on my lift slowly cleaning everything underneath, then just had to go out again for another ride. I put it away but couldn’t leave it for long. I ended up taking it out for on four separate drives yesterday. I really, really like this car and feel lucky to have the opportunity to start the third chapter in its life.
I look forward to benefiting from the knowledge and experience on this forum as I get to know my new XK.



4 Likes

superb !! have fun, and this is the place to share, and to ask,.,.a lot of experts here, so Welcome, also,you can access the prior posts by topic using the search the forums,tons of readily available info on almost any topic, good practice to search forums first,then ask, It appears to be an excellent car,with the lap belts shown,does it also have the double shoulder belts? May I recommend a book,XK140 Explored…,.along with the Service Manual if one did not come with the car,
Nick

Fab , a great choice .
Jim

Nice ride! Your 140 is what mine aspires to be, but is now only a rolling chassis waiting for its engine. Out of curiosity, what is the body number for your car? Does it have overdrive? If so, how are you liking it?

Bob

Great job on your purchase. That’s a beautiful car you have there. I hope we get to hear about more of your adventures with it in the future.

Looks very nice, good colour combo.
Wonder if the alloy doors are original or came later?

Thanks Bob, It’s Body # F13151, No O/D. I don’t think I’ll need it the way I’ll use the car.

Thanks Nick. No Shoulder belts, they certainly would be a good safety feature though.
Thanks for the recommendations, a service Manual and XK140 Explored are on the way

Your car came off the line about 75 cars after mine so the details should be similar. Good to know. Have fun with it.

Good scoop. That could come in handy.

John,

Your XK140MC looks superb - great acquisition.
You say its a 1957?
Can you advise Chassis Number.
Its undoubtedly in USA terms a 1957 Model Year and probably licensed as such, but F13151 Body Number suggests more likely a Dec 1956 date-of-manufacture, than being actually a January 1957 date-of-manufacture, the last LHD OTS being made on 30th Jan.

Regardless, being one of the last XK140s made, it will have several detail features of a lot of interest, to those of us, into such detail.

Enjoy JAGUAR XK140 EXPLORED when you receive your copy.

Roger,
Yes, it’s titled as a 1957, Chassis # is S813082. I’m not sure of it’s actual birthday, but would love to know.
It doesn’t have a certificate from the Jaguar Heritage trust yet, which I will apply for shortly. It did, on the other hand, come with a lot of other interesting and perhaps unusual documentation including the original bill of sale from Jake Kaplan’s Foreign Cars, Ltd to the original owner (7/15/1957, $3,525). The Original “Guarantee” to same and dated same. A “carriage” ticket from Jaguar Cars Ltd, Coventry to to Huskinsson Dock, Liverpool, England. And perhaps most interestingly, original shipping documents on the Cunnard steamship Brittanic from Liverpool to New York dated 3/1/57 showing this car, along with 3 other 140’s and two Mark VIII’s. The docs show dimensions, weight (2,940), body color, chassis#, engine #, model. Owners of XK-140’s Chassis # S813083, S813090, and S813088, as well as Mark VIII’s 78006BN, and 780053BN might be interested to have a copy of this.

Invaluable documentation!

Fascinating… it establishes one thing… " one box of touring kit spares" although printed on the waybill has been deleted…so not all cars were shipped to the US with these, in addition the battery was removed prior to shipment.

Anyone can order a Heritage Certificate. The original documents you have are rare and extremely interesting.

Fascinating document. So it was originally British Racing Green, and the 5 cars were delivered to the Liverpool dock on or about 3 January 1957 with a tin of paint each and the ship would close its doors to shipments on 9 January. When was the factory fire, Feb 12 wasn’t it?

That’s fantastic John, having the Shipping Note for your own actual XK140. These are rare enough survivors in absolute terms, let alone matching your own car. I have a virtually identical Shipping Note dated 19.11.55 that shows 3x XK140OTS and 2x XK140DHC shipped to Jaguar NY, that only recently have tracked down one of the OTS now surviving in New Zealand.

As others have noted, if you get a JDHT Certificate, this will provide additional factory information about your car - and it will/should show the same 3-1-57 (In UK terms this is 3rd Jan, and not American March 1st) as being the DISPATCH DATE (Date car was physically dispatched from the factory, invariably for USA exports on a car-transporter to the Liverpool Docks, where cars were held/loaded onto ship, in your case sailing on the 9th January, arriving in New York docks a couple (?) days later.) Car would have been unloaded, and trucked to Jaguar Cars New York (the East Coast Distributor), and held until an order received, in your case from Jake Kaplan’s Foreign Cars Ltd (will have to check my 1956/7 USA Dealers listings to identify), being sold new on 7/15/1957 (American paperwork/date so July 15th).

The JDHT Certificate will actually also advise your cars ‘Date of Manufacture’ which is the date the car rolled off the final assembly line as a finished/built car, with little more to do than a final quality control check, which period films show included a short test drive outside the Browns Lane factory, and any final adjustments/rectifications with a variable time being fixed/held before being ‘Dispatched’ for its new car sales destination. The ‘Date of Manufacture’ is the most important date re the exact build detail for authenticity matters, which in your case will be ‘late Dec 1956’, thus some 7 months prior to the somewhat irrelevant ‘date of new car sale’

The JDHT Certificate will advise the EXACT ‘Date of Manufacture’ of your car, but a good approximation can be ascertained from the tables in Philip Porters Jaguar Original XK book (Third Edition). Porter gives the last Chassis Number ‘date-of-manufacture’ for each month (only - not daily accuracy).

The last LHD XK140OTS built in November 1956 was 813045.
The last LHD XK140OTS built in December 1956 was 813121.
So a total of 76 cars built in Dec 1956 of which your S813082 was the 37th, so one could guess re proportional daily build rate apart from a few days off over Christmas/Boxing Day and weekends, I would GUESS at a Friday 14th or Monday 17th December ‘date of manufacture’ for S813082. See how we go when you get exact date from JDHT.

The very last XK140s built were mostly LHD OTS, indeed S813282 being the last built on 30th January 1957, so only 61 actually built in 1957, with only the last five LHD FHC and the last seven LHD DHC built up to 9th Jan. Only one RHD XK140 (a DHC) was built in 1957 - surprisingly shown as on the 1st January.

This gets interesting, as Jaguar introduced their new ‘XK150 range’ of ‘standard’ paint colours, from Dec1956/Jan 1957 onwards (exact date not determined, but maybe over Christmas/NY period), which carried over some old XK140 colours, but did introduce a lot of new XK150 colours such as Cotswold Blue, Indigo Blue and Imperial Maroon (replacing just Maroon) etc, and of course deleted most of the old XK140 colours (such as Lavender Grey and Birch Grey - so S813090 and S813088 on your Shipping Note must have been close to last being deleted in Dec 1956). Your B.R.G colour was one of the few that carried over from XK140 into XK150 unchanged in exact shade/formula.

Related ………
On your two H6 SU carburetters, you will find a letter/number stamped on the top flange of the carburetter main body where it bolts onto the inlet manifold. Can you please photograph or just advise what this number stamping is for both carburetters.

Roger

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What is the interior color? Was that a Jaguar color of the day?

Roger,
That’s very interesting information, thank you for taking the time to share it. December 14th sounds like a very educated and logical guess as to my car’s Date of Manufacture. I’ll advise the actual date when I receive the JDHT certificate. Photos of the carb numbers are below, the front carb was a little difficult to photograph as the coil mounting bracket is in the way, but I got it. The front carb has N4 SJ, while the rear has SJ N3.
Interestingly, the N# and SJ are reversed between the carbs.


Sounds like you will be able to build up a very enviable history file, very lucky - these details make such a difference.

I’m still interested in the fact that such a late 140 should have alloy doors, goes against all the advice so far.

Roger (K)