I realise Lh side of plate in English is same as RH SIDE IN ARABIC
I know the UAE but my book on rego plates of the world doesn’t have any similar plates in UAE section and there are other countries nearby that have similar plates.
The book is a comprehensive listing with photos of plates from around the world from the start of rego plates until now.
Here’s what little I could find. The left side is western arabic numerals as used in the western arab world such as Morocco and which migrated to Europe c1200 and eventually most of the rest of the world. The right side is eastern arabic numerals as used in the eastern arab world such as Egypt and Syria.
Many countries get their currency printed in England. I wonder if the same was true for license backing plates?
But all those little holes would suggest there were once other letters attached there by rivets. Would it be one of these?
the backing plate whilst no sign of ACE badge clip holes but other companies made them it is definitely an english item and the sort of backing plate for UK registration plate and given holes in it had characters (most likely cast aluminum) riveted to it that have been ground off to remove them. A study of hole pattern may lead to see what number was on it and if so we could say what month and county rego related to.
Will give it a close inspection tommorow.
The Arabic says TUNIS.
The car came from Tunisia, not UAE.
Cheers, Tadek
The pictured plate is actually from FRENCH NORTH AFRICA, from the Territory of TUNISIA.
This style of plate with English and Arabic and with the letters TU (denoting Tunisia) were as used up until March 1956 when they adopted a new style of plate for the now independent country of TUNISIA.
TU-10 is the serial number prefix, but I dont have enough information to accurately date, but by they were using up to at least TU-12 before introducing the new Tunisia series plates that were of format 12 ArabicLetters for Tunisia 4567 so totally different, but still white on black for private car number plates
The other Territories of FRENCH NORTH AFRICA were Morocco (that used MA prefix) and Algeria (that used AL prefix), but maybe as Terry suggests, the handiest North African dealership was in Libya - would have to have a look at my 1954 Jaguar Dealership list booklet…
Roger
Very little information known about Jaguars in Tunisia and also no known Jaguar importers for that country. But Tripoli is “just around the corner” (only 800 km or 500 mls).
According Clausager there was only 1 XK 120 OTS (standard version) delivered to importer Gordon Woodroffe in Tripoli in 1954. But the question is now whether it had been registered in the UK before.
For those interested, the Gordon Woodroffe company was (is?) a large trading company active in the former British Commonwealth and North Africa, with HQ in London. Carrington House, 130 Regent Street, London, W.I Their addresses in North Africa:
Central and Southern Zones of Morocco
Gordon Woodroffe Morocco, S.A.R.L., Place Amira Senes, Casablanca
Tangier and Northern Zone of Morocco
Gordon Woodroffe Tangier. S.A., 41 Boulevard Antee, Tangier
Libya
Gordon Woodroffe Libya Ltd. Shara Giama el Magariba. Tripoli
Gordon Woodroffe Libya Ltd. Shara Umar Ibn EI-As, Benghazi,
I guess the Jaguar dealership may have been located at their Tripoli address, but no confirmation found yet. We do know that Jaguar Cars was active in Libya: there is a press-release of February 1967 reporting that Jaguar was showing “products” at the Tripoli International Trade Fair.
Bob K.
What we put in “The Jaguar XK120 in the Southern Hemisphere”: Chassis completed on 14 June 1954 and despatched on 15 July 1954 to Gordon Woodroffe, Tripoli, Libya. No first owner recorded by works."
As Terry said, we had no more on the car at the time other than the numbers and colours.
Silly me when trying to work out which arabic counry looked at Tunisia ie the TU but didn’t see a simliar pic to the rego plate on the car didn’t think it was going to be a pre 1956 rego so bottom of the page 1901-1956 see French North Africa p232 and as roger notes there it is.
One of the few XK’s sold in Tunisia. I do have lots of photos of XK’s with Morocco plates MA.
Now to decipher the English plate
Here is what I have for Libya for “The Jaguar XK120 in the Southern Hemisphere” which will also be in “The Jaguar XK140 in the Southern Hemisphere” with any edits:
Libya
Early in the 1900s, Italy colonised Libya, but in the 1940s Britain and France gained control, and full independence followed in 1951. In 1959, Libya changed abruptly from being a poor country dependent on foreign aid and income from US and British air bases, to one rich from vast oil deposits.
In 1949, no distributor was listed in Jaguar literature for Libya, but by 1951 there was an entry for G.W. Libya Ltd of Via Duce Della Puglie, Tripoli, and thereafter of 260 Gladdat Idris Awal, Tripoli. Presumably G.W. stood for Gordon Woodroffe. In the province of Cyrenaica in 1951 the distributor was Abdullah Sonki & Co Ltd of Benghazi, shortly thereafter replaced by a branch of G.W. Libya Ltd at 60 Augustus Square, Benghazi and by 1955 at 8 Sharia Giama El Magarba, Tripoli. By 1957 the distributor’s name had changed to Gordon Woodroffe (Libya) Ltd (one entry showed Gordon, Woodroffe - i.e. two surnames rather than a christian name and surname), and the address was given as 8/14 Sharia Giama el Magariba, Tripoli. At that time the company also had a presence in Benghazi, at Shariah African Pelt. By 1960, the same company was based at Shell House, Sciara [sic] Giama el Magarba, Tripoli with a service facility at Sciara Buharida, Tripoli, and the Benghazi premises were then shown as Sciara Adrian Pelt with a service facility at Feuhat. Gordon Woodroffe seems to have been a very old company in the customs broking / freight forwarding businesses, initially based in London and Chennai, India. The name survives today principally in India, as part of a larger logistics group.
In Libya, Wheelus Airbase on the Libyan coast near Tripoli was in US hands from 1943 to 1970. It had been known as Mellaha Air Base when built by the Italians in 1923.
Libya took new 3 XK120 OTSs and 2 XK120 FHCs, as well as one XK140 and 3 XK150s.
Planned on getting these photos showing the holes in the plate a week ago. But as they say life got in the way. Back surgery set for Tuesday so hopefully will be more dilligent getting work done soon. Have managed to get the carbs cleaned up and hope to run it before I pull things further apart. Maybe someone will be able to figure out more from these photos, your better detectives than me. Thanks to all for their efforts.
Others are more knowledgeable about this topic than me, but your engine number indicates that it has a 7:1 compression ratio. I believe this was only used in cars destined for areas with lower quality, or at least lower octane, fuel. This might be an indication that your car was special ordered for use in Africa. My understanding is that this ratio is very unusual for a car in the US.
For the gas quality these days it ought to run on skunkpiss.
Quite right, the suffix -7 after the engine F3069 indicates flat top pistons. A suffix -8 indicates dome top pistons. I have only seen flat top pistons in an XK engine once in the USA. Yours may have been changed to dome top pistons at some later date when it came here. You maybe able to see them looking down through a spark plug hole.
Planning to put a camera in the cylinders before start up. Will report what I see. Thanks!
Actually you will find that the overwhelming majority of XK120 and Mark VIIs sold new into all rest-of-world markets, other than North America (USA and Canada) and Europe (including UK) were in fact 7:1cr, so that includes Australasia, Asia, SE Asia and Africa.
8:1cr was the norm for North America and Europe.
And the 31 only XK120s now known to have had 9:1cr engines, at this stage of follow up/examination appear to most probably have been specially ordered for racing purposes, where their intended events allowed higher octane fuel (aviation fuel) to be used, given readily available pump fuel was unsuitable…
But fuel quality did improve across the board during the mid/late 1950s and 1960s with 9:1 becoming common place, and 7:1 virtually non-existent… 
Roger