Romeo Twin-Spark XK's? Does anybody have any information?

Hi all,

Does anybody have any information about this car? https://www.catawiki.com/en/l/58346409-jaguar-xk-150-coupe-romeo-ferraris-1957

I am following the auction, and the bids are low for something that seems, to say the least special.

Best,

Ll.

Seems like the head is a late 3.8 35\40 D Type twin plug head as used in long nose D Types. Beyond that, no idea.

But the head doesn’t have the wide gap between the cam covers at the front, so can’t be a 35/40 head…

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Given all the non-standard modifications to the car, plus it looks fairly rough in the bodywork department, then couple that with the albeit fairly nice looking flares, but likely to upset the puristas, I can see why it might be bidding a bit low at this point

The plugs look like they are in individual wells and are mounted straight upright. Could be an E-Torque head, maybe? The wide-angle head has them in siamesed wells and they appear to be angled towards each other?

It’s what I thought too, E-Torque: but they are very onerous, the car is odd, with the $€$€ Borranis, what must have been a really expensive engine and so on.

How much would you expect to pay for a rusted out wreck of a project car? Whether or not you approve of the modifications, at least it looks complete and running, perhaps a good start for a back to original restoration.

At this point in time Kevin, an XK wreck, all models confused, will put you upwards of 40k for non-running and upwards of 50k for running. The cheapest I saw this year was a 350 hemi converter XK150 FHC, non-driveable and body rusted (chassis OK) for 30k (prices in €)

I don‘t think it is an e-torque or restogusto head, because the cam valley looks different.
I think its more an old racing head which Boyce show/mention in his book 1996.
Best regards
Thomas

Yes, that is exactly it. Many thanks Thomas. The name “Massimo”, must have been a tuner, is part of the spec of the car.

It would be interesting to know how much, if any, performance was gained using these heads. I’m sure they must have been expensive. Neat engineering, though.

No performance gain. Jag did the experiments and found to their surprise that the best plug position varied for individual cylinders, but twin spark added no benefit.

The result of the work was the change in plug position between early A/B/C port and plug positions (used on production D-types as well as contemporary road cars) and the 35/40 and straight port heads with plugs 1&6 moved outwards and the other four in two pairs.

The late 3.0L 35/40 heads got squish modifications but those weren’t applied to roaad cars either.

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