Featured: Magazine Covers, Post-College Road Trips, And Two Jaguar XK120s

Magazine Covers, Post-College Road Trips, And Two Jaguar XK120s

By Marco Annunziata
January 11, 2021

“How many 20 year old guys working their way through college have you ever heard of that bought a Jaguar XK120 in the ’50s?” After meeting Daryl Butcher, I can put my count at least one now.

Daryl bought his 1951 XK120 in 1958 while he was a senior at the University of Illinois, paying with $900 in assumed car payments and a ’48 Plymouth. More than half a century later, the XK120 in our photos has become what Daryl calls his “go home again” project, the long-time-coming replacement of his first Jag, a fully restored near-twin that he found a few years ago in 2016.

I only saw his first example in pictures from his physical collection, including snaps like the one he took at the Petrified Forest on Route 66 in 1959, on the way from Illinois to California, seen above in the article header. But from what I can see, the replacement is a worthy one. Daryl had been enchanted by the Jaguar XKs in grade school, and following the introduction of the XK120 into the American market, he became something of an encyclopedia about its motorsport activity, in particular when Phil Hill was driving.

“Who would have imagined that many years later I would meet Phil Hill and his wife Alma on several occasions, and even drive five laps on the Laguna Seca raceway with him! He was driving a 1928 Blower Bentley, and I was driving a 1935 Rolls-Royce 20/25.

“I know some people who wrongly think that Americans do not appreciate motorsports other than NASCAR, and only think in terms of manufacturers like John Deere and International Harvester. Well, that’s just not the way it always is.”

After weighing in on the common stereotype of American race fans, Daryl proceeded to show me a photo of a motor polo team that was taken in Illinois in 1926. The old Model T Ford chassis were fitted with wagon wheel hoops on the sides so the participants had something to brace with as they used mallets to chase a ball around a cow pasture in a manner similar to polo, just with a different breed of horsepower.

“These so-called country bumpkins managed to combine motor racing with the sport of kings and queens. Imagine the mayhem that ensued when two teams of these vehicles entered into a contest!” That motor polo team in the photo was called “The Crazy Four,” and Mike, one of the members, became a part of Daryl’s XK120 story.

“Mike and his brother Tony ran a Shell station right on the original alignment of Route 66 when Illinois Route 4 was used for the mother road, and they helped us high school-aged drivers with our various jalopies. In fact, this Shell station, Soulsby’s, is located on the alignment of the first pavement specifically built for Route 66, and it happened to be about three miles from my parents’ home. It was built in 1926, the same year the motor polo picture was taken.”

During his high school years in question, Daryl drove a 1937 Chevrolet two-door sedan that he’d painted dove gray over metallic blue, using the paint brushes he could round up in his dad’s garage. He enjoyed the Chevy, but thanks to a few school trips, his focus turned distinctly to the Jaguar.

“In 1954, the ‘commercial club’ students that took typing, shorthand, etcetera, sold magazines to finance a trip to Washington D.C.  About a dozen of us took the Greyhound overnight,” he recalls.

While waiting for the bus to arrive at the local terminal, Daryl bought a sports car magazine that featured a white XK120 on the cover with the brightwork finished in gold plate. He was mesmerized by the elegance beauty of the car, its ability to deftly blend opulent style with speed and high performance engineering.

He was pretty smitten with the car after reading that article a few dozen times, and a year later the high-school faculty carted around the students interested in the sciences to the engineering open houses at nearby universities.

“We went to Washington University in St. Louis, and a couple of weeks later we drove the 135 miles up to the University of Illinois. We drove in four cars for that trip. I remember three of them for sure—my dad’s 1954 DeSoto, a 1954 Buick Century, a new Pontiac Starliner convertible, and the fourth was, I think, a ‘lead sled’-style 1950 Mercury.”

“My mother, knowing about my infatuation with sports cars, had made a sports car-themed shirt for me. She was a superb seamstress. The shirt was white and had an MG TD, a Triumph, and an XK120 roadster repeated in a pattern, and I was wearing that shirt for the trip to the University of Illinois.

“When we arrived at the designated parking area and were forming up to walk to the engineering campus, a member of the university faculty came running up to me all excited about my shirt. He told me that he had a white XK120 roadster just like the one on the shirt, and just had to have one of his own to wear.”

One thing led to another, and he got Daryl’s address and they sent letters back and forth for a time; Daryl’s mother made him a shirt and charged him $5 for the job, including the material. This was in the spring of 1955.

“Three years later, I found myself enrolled in the Electrical Engineering program at the University of Illinois as a Junior. My dad and I had agreed to find a place for three of us guys to live on the cheap, and we had driven up and leased a two-room apartment on the top of this old Victorian castle that was located about a mile from campus. We were not aware of it at the time, but it was not ‘legal’ for unmarried students under the age of 21 to live in unapproved student quarters.

“We had to get a friendly professor to vouch for us and assume the responsibility, and we split the rent of $70 a month between the three of us. One of our rooms was a kitchen, and the other was the bedroom and living area. We kept track of our food expenses for the two semesters that we lived there and divided the total by three and paid off differences between our individual expenses. It came to a total of $95 each for our food for the school year. We got very good at being frugal and taking advantage of every free meal offered by any organization within bicycling distance!”

The 1937 Chevrolet from high school was no longer with them, and Daryl’s dad had bought a 1948 Plymouth business coupe for his son to use in its place.

“That Plymouth was a really great car. It ran like a top. We had fitted it with a Sears Roebuck short-block engine, and it featured prominently in my eventual ownership of an XK120.

“All three of us in that apartment were paying our way through college. I worked at the University Antenna Research Laboratory for about $1.25 an hour. My roommate Dale was studying paleontology, so he worked as a student assistant, drove an ambulance, served as a soda jerk, had loans, and found various other ways to pay for his education. He was interested in sports cars mostly because of their artistic styling, and one day he happened upon a white XK120 in a used car lot near the University. Now, what are the odds of that car not being the same one that had been owned by the guy my mother made the shirt for a couple of years earlier?

“It had to have been the same car. There were very few XK120s even in the whole state of Illinois back then, and I was convinced. I couldn’t afford the car of course, but Dale had just received the princely sum of $1,000 in a grant and felt a little rich. So he made a down payment and got the car for himself. I wanted it so bad I couldn’t stand it!

“Dale got accepted for graduate school at the University of Chicago shortly afterwards. The University of Chicago was not a land grant college, but a private school, and the tuition was going to go up to dramatically higher than the $120 a semester we had been paying as undergrads. He could no longer afford to make payments on the XK120 as a result of this new reality, so we reached a deal where I would give him my old Plymouth in return for his equity in the Jaguar, and I would take over his remaining payments.”

And that is how Daryl came by his first 1951 XK120. He was confident he could afford to pay it off because although he had a summer session remaining until he graduated, he had already been offered a job with Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton, California.

“So here I am with my cousin and my XK120 before leaving for California. This was one of the only times it ever had the top up. The top was only used in California if it rained heavily, which as you know can be pretty rare. During that summer session before graduation in 1959, I had the pleasure of driving the car as a college student, and not a rich Chicago frat-rat student, but one from a coal miner’s family. There were a couple of MGs and a Porsche around that I can recall, but that was it as far as imported sports cars.

“Soon enough, I had to start preparing the car for its over 2,000 mile trip to California.”

The first thing that Daryl did was take the car up to get it serviced at Mike’s garage, the one mentioned at the beginning of the story. They put the car up on the one cylinder lift, wheeled the oil catch tank under it, raised the funnel, pulled the sump plug, and went into the office to relax and talk while it drained. When they went back into the garage area the floor was covered in oil.

“No one ever heard of a car that held twelve quarts of oil, so I had a mess to clean. We didn’t find anything out of order besides that while we did the rest of the checking up, and it seemed to run just fine. The plugs looked good too, so we declared it ready to drive the mother road to California.

“My grade school and high school classmate who had recently been discharged from the Navy and I packed everything we owned into the skimpy trunk of the car and behind the seat crammed in with the top and batteries, and then shoved off in the first week of September of 1959 for the long trip west.” This was one year and a month before the first episode of the classic Martin Milner and George Maharis TV series Route 66

“We made our way west, and seeing as it was September, it kept getting hotter the further we went. The first day we made it to Shamrock, Texas. We found a little shade later on in New Mexico, and rested under the only tree for miles. We forged on past Albuquerque and Gallup and eventually to Arizona. We went past the Jackrabbit Gasoline signs, Winslow, and don’t forget Winona. We did all of the usual things. We looked at the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest and went to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We went to the meteor crater and were too tight to pay to view. We stayed in a wigwam motel. We got well and truly sunburned.”

Eventually, the two friends made it to California, but put on a few extra miles to head up to the lakes in the San Bernardino mountains. Through it all, the car performed perfectly. “Even in the the desert at noon, it never overheated once, and we seldom drove below 60mph.

Not long after that, Daryl then spent two years at remote radar sites in Alaska after driving the Jaguar non-stop back to Illinois by himself. His dad did a lot of work on her once it arrived, including fresh paint and some new upholstery, as Daryl recalls. “Dad let a mechanic friend tune the car. He took it for a spin and didn’t have the bonnet properly latched, so it blew open and came completely off the car and was rolled up like aluminum foil. Dad lost interest and we sold the car to a guy in St. Louis, and when I got back I searched for another one off and on for the next 50-plus years.”

Daryl finally got serious with putting an end to his search in 2016, and restored one the easy way. “A gentleman in Florida had run across a virtual barn find and had gone all the way with a total rebuild. It took a few years to restore, but I purchased the car and had it shipped to California where I have been enjoying it since, just like I did after college.”

Although Daryl’s “new” Jag has a tan interior whereas his original’s was red, it is the same year and very much the aesthetic sibling of the one he had back in the late 1950s. Mechanically it’s even better, as he tells me before we part ways. “It does have one major improvement. It is fitted with a five-speed Tremec gearbox, it carries the XK140 dual exhaust system in stainless steel, it has the biggest valves that will fit in the head, and has a 9:1 compression. It is indeed quite fun to drive, but then again, I’ve thought that was the case since 1958.”

 

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Burukutu Gagaranga
Burukutu Gagaranga
1 year ago

Post-College Road Trips” signify a liberating adventure, offering graduates a chance to unwind and explore after completing their academic journey. This period of transition allows individuals to celebrate accomplishments, reflect on personal growth, and create lasting memories. The link at https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/personal-qualities/ offers insights into personal qualities, aligning with the diverse experiences encountered during these road trips. Just as post-college excursions bring a mix of emotions and discoveries, exploring personal qualities through essays enriches self-awareness. Both experiences contribute to a well-rounded perspective, fostering continuous learning and personal development beyond the academic realm.

lvc2jag
lvc2jag
2 years ago

Although I had an Austin Healey 3000 in college, I loved the xk120 and Porsche 356. Ended up with 5 356s and 2 xk120s( one still daily driver) and an xke. Although I’m 76, every day my xk120 roadster makes it feel like 1966 again.😃

Gary Stokley
Gary Stokley
2 years ago

Not all twenty-year-old students have even heard of this, and even more so don’t have such an opportunity. I also have more mundane student problems, and so far these are inaccessible events for me. I’m currently preparing the best phd research proposal and so I had to ask for help. Because I was not confident in my abilities and that I could prepare properly.

Kecherty
Kecherty
3 years ago

wooow piccomment image

john nichols
john nichols
3 years ago

My family icon was a 1954 XK120 Drophead which my father bought in 1967.
I was only 6 or 7 at the time but I still remember the backwards tachometer and the glass rear view mirror and lots of little special noises like the 1st gear whine and the turn signal click, etc. We had the car until about 2006 and in the early days my sister and parents would all pile in for drives to the beach on weekends. After my father put a lot of time and effort into making it right it seemed to always run well and I never remember any headaches with the car. Thank you for reminding me of our own special life and a truly Magic Carpet!

Ruth_Gomez
Ruth_Gomez
3 years ago

I also bought a retro car at one time and drove around the city. Of course, before that it was necessary to pass exams. The hardest part was writing an essay. How good that long ago invented a service that will help. I chose for myself https://supremestudy.com/. After all, it is very high quality and convenient. My car was definitely happy to travel several thousand kilometers. And I was glad that I passed the exam well.

Ruth_Gomez
Ruth_Gomez
3 years ago

So cool

isagrifo1974
isagrifo1974
3 years ago

Can you tell me why some XK120s don’t have the back tires covered?

John Lucke
John Lucke
3 years ago

While I can’t match the cross country trip as a 20 year old in the Air Force in Tucson Arizona I did trade my 1959 VW for a 1954 XK120 coupe. After a couple of years worth of repairs, a paint job (and repair after the front fender was damaged by a run away wheel from a passing car) and a transplant of a 3.8 XKE engine I traded the Jag for a nice reliable MGB that stood we good for a number of long distance drives to Denver, LA, San Francisco etc. The “B” was ultimately replaced by an AC Ace 2.6, #24 of the 36 built.

thad carson
thad carson
3 years ago

Now there are at least two college students driving a Jag XK120 in the late 50s. When I got out of the army I lucked into a very good part-time job, so I went looking for a car. I found a 1951 XK120, black, and bought it for $200 cash and a $1000 loan from my father’s credit union. I didn’t know at the time it had come over from the UK with an Air Force pilot who had raced it into decrepitude. I spent more time under the car and under the hood than I ever spent driving it. It finally drained me of any extra money I could round up, so it went down the road. Even though it was a pain in the butt, I still remember it fondly. Ai at recent auto show I bumped into an XK120 – perfect. In talking to the owner I commented that when I went to college driving an XK120, I went to a state university. If I had owned a Chevrolet, I could have afforded to go to Princeton.

isagrifo1974
isagrifo1974
3 years ago
Reply to  thad carson

Any photos?

Jonathan Kirshtein
Jonathan Kirshtein
3 years ago

What a great story. My Dad had a 140 DHC in law school in the late 50s followed by a sedan or two,then the family came along so the Jags departed for more spacious American cars. 1967 I think it was he bought a 57 XK140 DHC and did a light reconditioning at that time. In the 90s we did a frame off restoration in the Boston area, leaving the engine (as original 48k miles) but managed the brakes, gearbox needs and wiring. I had a lot of the chrome done as well. Two years ago I had the engine rebuilt and at 87 years old, my Dad drives it whenever he gets the chance. 54 years of ownership, unbelievable!

wmaloney
wmaloney
3 years ago

As a U. of Illinois alum, fan of Route 66, lover of Jaguar, and currently employed in Central Illinois, this feature was a home run for me. I am also very happy that the owner has been able to obtain and enjoy a nicely restored one too. Thanks very much for sharing.

isagrifo1974
isagrifo1974
3 years ago

Non avevo mai visto un uomo in kilt sotto il sole della California! 🙂
Storia bellissima. Grazie!

Douglas Anderson
Douglas Anderson
3 years ago

Great story, wonderful automobile .
I still look around at the 140 series now and again. Sadly they are all above my meager budget.

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