1955 Jaguar XK140 roadster - photos

[Altair]

1955 Jaguar XK140 custom roadster designed by American industrial designer Raymond Loewy.






Previously:

1962 El Tiburon Shark roadster - photo and video
2007 Blastolene B-702 Custom Roadster - photo
1978 AMC Pacer custom car - photos
1948 Mercury Templeton Saturn roadster - photos
1950 Cadillac Le Mans concept car - photo

[tonyfoale]

What terrible thing to do to what was a a timelessly beautiful car. This is a real XK140.

[Duke_of_URL]

This was definitely a sign of things to come, as later found in the 1962 Studebaker Avanti, also from the hand of Raymond Lowey.

Notice the similarity of the designs below:

[WmRMeyers]

1955 Jaguar XK140 custom roadster designed by American industrial designer Raymond Loewy.

That's just fugly. Once upon a time I had about a third of a 1955 Jaguar XK150, and big plans for it. It was a hardtopped version, and I loved the look of it. But I wasn't nearly the mechanic it was going to need, and Uncle Sam sent me to Turkey before I could get any more foolish, which was probably a good thing.

Heck, I'm still not the mechanic that thing would have needed...

[tonyfoale]

That's just fugly. Once upon a time I had about a third of a 1955 Jaguar XK150, and big plans for it. It was a hardtopped version, and I loved the look of it. But I wasn't nearly the mechanic it was going to need

I had an S-type that was dying of terminal body rust so I turned it into the following. Lighter than an E-type but with E-type engine. It went quite well.

Click it for full size.

This is the chassis that I made.

The office.

Suspension.

[WmRMeyers]

I had an S-type that was dying of terminal body rust so I turned it into the following. Lighter than an E-type but with E-type engine. It went quite well.

Click it for full size.

This is the chassis that I made.

The office.

Suspension.

That looks really good! I've never had the skills to do anything like that, spent most of my time learning other skills, many of which are now obsolete since we don't use stuff that way anymore. Should have spent more time on the metalworking stuff that I liked, but got seduced by art and science... I became an excellent technical photographer, but never managed to be artistic at it. Finally got a clue, once SWMBO slapped me upside the head and took a class in machining, which took me 7 years and 3 months, to the day, to complete. Should have been a 8-9month class, if I'd gone full-time. When I call myself an old retarded Master Sergeant, I'm not kidding.

Bill

[tonyfoale]

That looks really good! I've never had the skills to do anything like that, spent most of my time learning other skills, many of which are now obsolete since we don't use stuff that way anymore. Should have spent more time on the metalworking stuff that I liked, but got seduced by art and science... I became an excellent technical photographer, but never managed to be artistic at it. Finally got a clue, once SWMBO slapped me upside the head and took a class in machining, which took me 7 years and 3 months, to the day, to complete. Should have been a 8-9month class, if I'd gone full-time. When I call myself an old retarded Master Sergeant, I'm not kidding.

Bill

Glad that you like it. In the film days I also became quite good at the technical side of photography but like you the artistic side eluded me. My formal education was theoretical but I had the good fortune to have had no training in the physical arts of making stuff. I say good fortune because there was nobody to tell me that "you can't do that".

Actually it was much easier to make the Jag based car than it was to repair a Porsche body. I crashed a Porsche in the mid 1970s due to a new tyre being badly fitted the day before. The body was bent like a banana, beyond straightening. I scoured the country for a body shell and found only one. It looked OK but when I got it back, it became obvious that much of it was rusted out and would not have enough structural integrity. A previous owner had stuffed newspaper in the missing sections and covered it with filler and paint. I have very poor sheet metal skills but it needed fixing although "expert" body people told me that it was too far gone.

This shows the state of the sills;
Click for full size

After a bit of TLC;




On the road again;


I hated that work and I would never do anything like it again. Whereas building the Jag based car was no worries at all.

[Jon]

Loewy had some wins, but also a unique skill for taking smooth graceful lines and straightening them out to make them uglier. Cars, houses, cookware. Some gems:

The Library of Congress sought fit to add this one to their archives:


Leisurama house:


Le Creuset cookware:

[WmRMeyers]

Glad that you like it. In the film days I also became quite good at the technical side of photography but like you the artistic side eluded me. My formal education was theoretical but I had the good fortune to have had no training in the physical arts of making stuff. I say good fortune because there was nobody to tell me that "you can't do that".

Actually it was much easier to make the Jag based car than it was to repair a Porsche body. I crashed a Porsche in the mid 1970s due to a new tyre being badly fitted the day before. The body was bent like a banana, beyond straightening. I scoured the country for a body shell and found only one. It looked OK but when I got it back, it became obvious that much of it was rusted out and would not have enough structural integrity. A previous owner had stuffed newspaper in the missing sections and covered it with filler and paint. I have very poor sheet metal skills but it needed fixing although "expert" body people told me that it was too far gone.

This shows the state of the sills;
Click for full size

After a bit of TLC;




On the road again;


I hated that work and I would never do anything like it again. Whereas building the Jag based car was no worries at all.

Closest I got to something like that, Grandpa gave me his 61 Falcon when he wore it out, when I was about 17. I was supposed to take it apart and work on it, and learn as much as I could from it. One day, he came over and stole the rear bumper, to replace the one on Grandma's 61 Falcon. She'd bent it into a L shape. Hooked it on something, didn't damage anything but the bumper. I used a propane torch, a wet rag, and a (probably 2lb) ballpeen hammer to straighten it back out, and get the curver right. This was an all-steel bumper, back way before they started putting plastic covers over such things. Only way to tell it had been damaged was that the chrome was cracked where the bend had been. One day, I come home and the car was gone. Never did find out, or at least don't remember, why, but we did move to a different house a few months later. May have been related. Shortly after that, I graduated from high school, and enlisted in the USAF. Didn't make it back very often, and found other cars elsewhere. Wish I'd kept a few of them, now. My 1st and 2nd cars that I bought for myself, were a 1966 Pontiac Le Mans, and a 1963 Chevy Impala SS hardtop, with the 327 with camel-bump heads. Even as worn as it was, it was a FAST car. The Le Mans engine blew up the third day I had it, and I didn't even think about buying an engine for it. And traded the Impala for some Vietnamese Ancestor Bones. Neat artwork, but God, the YDS was strong in this one back then!