LT1 LT2 LT3 - LE MANS BACK-UP

Jaguar built three very special racing XK120 bodies to have as a back-up if the C-Type was not ready to debut at Le Mans in 1951. This is the story of those cars.

YOU WOULD THINK EVERYTHING about Jaguar's 1950s racing era competition cars has been told, but for most devotees there is little or no knowledge of three cars built as reserves for the initial factory team to contest the Le Mans 24 Hour race in 1951. Three works-supported but near-standard XK120s had run at the second post-War race there in 1950, and Jaguar Cars was so impressed the Directors decided to build a model especially for the event the next year.

Jaguar frantically created three totally new racers officially titled the XK120C. We know them commonly as the C-Type. One would finish, and surprisingly, win the world's greatest endurance race at its debut in 1951. The three reserve XK120s had not been disclosed to the public, so were quietly put aside and forgotten.

To be precise, they were one-piece XK120 bodies built by Abbey Panels, Jaguar's usual supplier, and described as being magnesium. At least the first one was aluminium.

While the cars looked like a regular XK120, they were a silhouette car with no doors, a tiny bonnet, no boot and no accessories including bumpers. It was intended to have the new C-Type mechanicals fitted into a near standard XK120 chassis. That was much more industrial than the purpose-designed tubular chassis created for the eventual Jaguar Le Mans starters.

Of course, the factory didn't want any unnecessary attention to distract from the 1951 victory which put it firmly into the international media spotlight.

They were officially titled XK120 LT1, LT2 and LT3, but only the latter two were completed and race-ready. The third, LT1, remained no more than an unpainted shell.