Hello List,
I recently saw this article of a 97 year old XK120 owner living north of Vancouver, Canada which might be of interest to you. I contacted the owner and confirmed that the serial number of his XK120 is 670836. There was a photo with the article but I couldn’t copy it over
Geoff 670203
COLLECTOR CLASSICS
Cruisin’ the coast in a classic Jag
- Vancouver Sun
- 21 Jun 2019
- ALYN EDWARDS Collector Classics
PHOTOS: ALYN EDWARDS Alan Craighead’s 1950 Jaguar XK120 has been his summer driver since 1981.
Alan Craighead has had an interesting life. The longtime resident of Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast — a 40-minute ferry ride north of Vancouver — was born in 1921, making him 97 years old. Despite that, he plans to still be driving the 1950 Jaguar XK120 roadster he has owned for nearly 40 years. He stores “Lady C” at his oceanfront home and regularly works on it in his carport.
“I’ve just completed a brake job,” he says, adding he has maintained the car himself over the many years of ownership and refurbished the cockpit with correct red Connelly leather.
Craighead has been driving since he was 10 years old. That’s 87 years behind the wheel.
“My father taught me to drive in the 1928 Chevrolet sedan he bought new, just before the Depression hit,” Craighead says of his days growing up in North Vancouver, noting he couldn’t afford his own car during the Depression.
He eventually took over his father’s customs brokerage house and ran Milne & Craighead with his father’s partner’s son until they sold the business to their employees. Craighead retired at the age of 50 whereupon he was appointed board chairman of Milne & Craighead Ltd. and fished commercially for about seven years.
He had a thing for Jaguars and used to walk by Coventry Motors on Vancouver’s Seymour Street, a noted Jaguar repair and restoration shop. It was there that he spotted the white Jaguar XK120 sports car for sale. “I finally succumbed and bought the car in 1981,” he says. “I was told that it came from California, but that is all I know about it.”
It would have been among the first XK120 sports cars imported into the United States.
The Jaguar XK120 was built between 1948 and 1954 as a test bed for the automaker’s new 3.4-litre straight six engine, and was unquestionably one of the finest sports cars of its day. The model number came from a guaranteed top speed of 120 miles per hour. But a Jaguar test driver reached speeds in excess of 130 m.p.h. (209 km/h) on an unused highway in Belgium. It was the world’s fastest production car, and the first XK120 roadster built in 1949 was delivered to Hollywood heartthrob Clark Gable.
Craighead’s bright white XK120 roadster with upholstery made from red hides is a 1950 model that was registered in 1951. It spent years in storage after Craighead decided to go back to school at the age of 61. It was 1982, the year after he bought the Jaguar. When not attending university, Craighead and wife Eva travelled the world to view famous archeological sites.
He graduated from Simon Fraser University in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in archeology. Encouraged to move forward with his education by a professor, he moved to England to attend Cambridge University where he earned a doctorate in archeology. He was 74 years old when he became Alan Craighead, PhD.
The Jaguar came out of longterm storage to return with him to the two-acre property he bought in Roberts Creek in the mid-50s. Lady C has been his summer driver ever since.
Now time has moved on and the property is up for sale. Craighead is moving into a waterfront condominium in Sechelt.
He knows his days of driving his cherished Jaguar sports car are limited, but he will licence it for another summer. So if you’re on the Sunshine Coast and see an amazing vintage sports car roar by, chances are it is being driven by longtime owner Craighead, who looks forward to driving it to his 98th birthday party in August. Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in Peak Communicators, a Vancouver-based public relations company. aedwards@peakco.com