I want you to imagine that one day you open your garage and survey the contents therein,feasting your eyes on cars of which heretofore you have only beenable to dream. Amongst the collection first of all you have two of the 16 XKSS’s made by Jaguar, plus so many other important cars that you really cannot believe your eyes. You are the kid who has been given the keys to the candy store! This is what befell us when Walter Hill, that rare American who for many years was so passionate about our marque, opened up his garage for John Burton, George Gibbs and I to see back in February 1992. John and I had gone to see the Daytona 24 hour race, and it was George who kindly introduced us to this wonderful gentleman. The Walter Hill collection of Jaguars was sold last year and cars are appearing on the market all over the world, some sold some not the latter including the lightweight E type and the early chassis no. 27 E type which failed to meets their reserve at Goodwood in September
Walter’s fascination with Jaguars dates back
to the euphoric age of the 1950’s and he
became determined one day to own an XKSS;
his quest for this most rare of Jaguars began
in 1968 with a phone call to his friend Reggie
Smith who said that such things were unobtainable,
but Walter persisted. After a fruitless year’s
search he once again phoned Reggie and was
advised that if, a small if at that, such
a vehicle was to come on the market it would
probably be advertised in a magazine called
Competition Press, something Walter had never
heard of. Walter at this moment was in Miami
and phoned around until he found a news stand
that had a copy, went straight over and of
all things there within was an XKSS for sale! Read below because the story of the acquisition
is one of my favorite stories of all time.
So began a collection that at the time I
considered better than that of Jaguar itself.
Apart from the two cars mentioned above,
the collection contained the D type that
achieved fastest speed ever officially attained
by a D type, four XK120’s including chassis
no. 1 and 123, two C types and a replica
C type, the chassis no. 27 E type mentioned
above and a commemorative (these RHD), an
SS90, the first I had ever seen, the lightweight E type, a Mk 7 and the group
44 XJR5’s of Bob Tullius fame, plus several famous American cars and to
top it all off a couple of crop duster planes.
Later on there was also the “second” XJ13
but more of that later; oh and I nearly forgot
the original 4 cylinder 2 litre Jaguar engine
on a display stand and so many models and
pictures that it would take a week to take
it all in. I think it sums up Walter completely
to see what was written on a beam above the
collection:
THEIR SWEET LINES ALL BUT TAKE MY BREATH
AWAY, AND I DESIRE THEM AS MUCH FOR THEIR
BEAUTY AS FOR THEIR USE.
I still have a photo of that and it touches
me to the core every time I look at the album.
It was written exactly like that on two lines,
all in capitals.
Click on any
picture for closer look.
picture for closer look.
To continue the story of the acquisition
of his first XKSS, a garage proprietor in Olatha, Kansas, one Joe Egle, was selling up and wanted
rid of his personal collection. Walter took
the first TWA flight out the next day but
couldn’t come to an agreement on the price
and left empty handed. If nothing else, Joe
Egle was a salesman and phoned Walter many
times over the course of the next year, the
price slowly coming down to half the original
asking price, terminating one day with a
phone call to say that he had found a buyer
but felt that really, since Walter was so
passionate about Jaguars, that he should
if he wanted become the owner and not the
other. Walter flew out the next day to Kansas, bought the car and arranged for it to be
shipped forthwith out of the state of Kansas.
Here also is a (younger) photo of me with
the car:
Unfortunately time has flown and with it
my memory so I was horrified to find that
my daughter had recorded over one of my tapes
of that meeting so the actual order of the
collection and other details are lost, but
I shall continue with what I know for certain
from the remaining tapes and what remains
in my memory of that very special day.
Walter in the 1970’s got very interested
in concourses and originality, and having
bought chassis No. 123 XK120 (for the princely
sum of $1,500) he proceeded to turn this
into a show car, culminating with first prize
at the Pebble Beach concours at the beginning of the 1990’s.
This car has now been sold in the USA after failing to meet its reserve price at
auction, reputedly for approximately $400,000.
Here is a photo of his two XK120’s:
One car that fascinated me was the Walter
Hansgen D type, chassis XKD 529, which he
campaigned so well that he was never bested.
This car was sold on in 1959 and was changed
to a 3.8 litre engine, a 2.53 rear axle,
and disc wheels as you can see from the photo,
and a rear exiting exhaust before running
at Utah and achieving 185.47 mph. Finally, much later
on in 1980, the car suffered tornado damage
when a building collapsed on it and Walter
Hill acquired it, restoring it exactly to
the form it had when it ran at Utah. This car is internally a D type, but as
you can see from the picture externally looks
very different to standard; a fascinating
piece of history.
Walter’s SS90 was the subject of “a full
restoration” in England, but when he got the car the motor lasted
no more than 10 miles before it exploded.
It turned out that the replacement pistons
were the correct size but rather incredibly
were designed for a slow revving tractor,
not a high revving Jaguar! This car was “on
the button” and I still have the tape of
the throaty roar as he started it up. I believe
that there were about 22 SS90’s made and
I feel privileged to have seen two during
my lifetime since many have never had the
opportunity to see one ever. I wonder how
many survive over all.
So the story continues; Walter is such a
fascinating man but at the same time a self
effacing one; on my tapes he is clearly asked
when he will be writing his biography, and
Walter is most emphatic that this would never
happen. I hope that these two articles, while
not being a biography, will at least commit
to history some of the life of this most
likeable man who was the foremost Jaguar
collector in the world. In his professional life Walter was a test
pilot, a job of not inconsiderable danger
and importance in itself, but when he was
buying his collection he was expressly forbidden
by Eastern Airlines to take part in racing.
Their explication was that they paid him
to take risks in the air, not on the ground!
So Walter said to himself that buying a “sports
car” was permissible, hence the acquisition
of an XKSS.
Well, I have recounted part of the history
of the first XKSS that Walter possessed but
not all and this car as you will see is now
a replica D type complete with Lucas fuel
injection. Walter had however carefully stored
the original body of the XKSS and all relevant
parts since this project was one he wanted
to undertake without destroying the original
car.
As a side note it is interesting that Walter
was the tenth owner of this car when he purchased
it in 1969, 12 years after it was built,
and there is a historical reason for this;
When the XKSS was envisaged it was to run
as a racer in the C class and as such 50 needed to be built,
a simple matter for Jaguar to do until the
fire swept away all such thoughts in February
1957, as a result of which the XKSS had to
run in the C modified class which was another
kettle of fish entirely.
Originally he changed it to a short nosed
D type but then he had the long nose D type
body shell made by RS Panels in England and
it was then painted in the Briggs Cunningham
colors exactly as it raced at Sebring in
1957; but to me the most fascinating part
of the history of this car is the fuel injection
system. Well, you might say, fuel injection
is pretty well known in Jaguar circles, but
not the original fuel injection on the 1956/7
D types which until then I had thought was
the same system that the later E types sported,
but no, this is not the case. The original
system was made as a one off with, according
to Walter, only eight systems being fabricated
and which remained the property of Lucas
at all times, so much so that when the cars
were sold on they were returned to Webers
and the injection system returned to Lucas
as owners. The 1957 Ecurie Ecosse D type
is one such car, winning the Le Mans 24 hours with fuel injection but being converted
to Webers before sale.
One day in the early 1970’s Walter was at Donington Park with Tom Wheatcroft, the owner, and saw on
the wall of his museum a cutaway copy of
the original 1956/7 injection system which
was made for display purposes only. After
some time and some discussion Tom allowed
Walter to take away the cutaway show model
and Walter, through his Aircraft connections
he had made a complete early injection system
which the car still sported when we saw it.
Walter recounted that these engineers worked
to tolerances in the millionths of an inch
range, far beyond our normal range as car
people, and believes that this is the only
early system remaining in existence, although
I am not able to verify this myself. The
car ran reasonably well with the system but
either in the upper range or the lower and
since I was there they spent several years
getting the car to run correctly throughout
the rev range. This car was sold recently
and – happy news – is back in the south of England with all relevant pieces and is being rebuilt
as an XKSS again. Photos of this car will
be appearing later in the year.
The acquisition of the second, red, XKSS
is a trifle bizarre in that the owner said
he would sell it to Walter on the condition
that he found him an Austin Princess! Walter
hadn’t a clue but worked on it, found one,
phoned the XKSS owner who then said he had
changed his mind and wanted a London taxi! To cut a convoluted story short he
ended up with neither but was aware that
he had put Walter to a lot of effort and
sold it to him anyway. Walter’s original
idea in purchasing this car was that it should
be a spares car!
Unfortunately the history of the acquisition
of his C types is lost both on tape and in
my memory which is a complete shame, as is
that of the early E type and the commemorative
(interesting number plate though – any one
know of it?), but there are other stories
still to relate. Walter is above all a sports
car man but had at one time a well used E
type coupe which he traded with a gentleman
for the Mk7 shown here, his reasoning being
that while the XK120 was the test bed for
the XK engine it was for the new MK7 that
it was designed. This car, as all his cars
at the time, was in absolutely stunning condition.
So let’s move on to his two group 44 cars,
the XJR5’s. Group 44 was of course the Bob
Tullius connection, but later in life Bob
grew tired of cars and got more and more
into aircraft. I seem to remember, and I
hope this is correct, that Walter, passionate
of aircraft as well as cars, owned a P51
Mustang fighter and that this formed part
of the deal when he acquired the cars. I
know for sure that Bob Tullius had a P51
and I took the opportunity when at Duxford
recently to take this photo of one.
The “04” car was originally the “Salad Bar”
car, being a rolling chassis for demonstrating
at launches etc. but without running gear,
but Walter being Walter this is now a fully
functional racing car. Only he would do this
I reckon, already owning one!
Since I was there a new acquisition came
along this is both famous and somewhat infamous
at the same time. Walter owned the “second“
XJ13; I hear a collective intake of breath
here but please bear with me. When you own
all of the above cars and want to complete
your collection, what car is missing? The
XJ13 of course so Walter commissioned Brian
Wingfield to build a replica body shell,
a task that was carried out so meticulously
and which entailed Brian taking measurements
of the original car at the JDHT so even the
spacing of the rivets is correct. Well, there
are many replicas of the XJ13 about, but
this one is special for above all one very
important reason – it sports the original
V12 5 litre quad cam engine designed for
the car, the precursor to the 5.3 litre twin
cam E type engine. This 5 litre was produced
for racing but due to regulation changes
was still born and several engines remained
on the shelf at Jaguar since the mid 1960’s
when the car was built. However, how both
spare engines came to leave Jaguar and one
to be installed in the replica is a wonderful
story but one I cannot relate for fear of
making the slightest error in its recounting!
Last I saw, this car was still on the market
for a mind boggling $750,000. Here is a very
rare photo of the quad cam 5 liter engine:
Above you have the bones of the Walter Hill
collection. Perhaps I’ll return to it from
time to time and relate more on his other
cars. Finally, this visit was capped by a
visit to the Daytona 24 hour race, where
Jaguar came 2nd due to a broken gearbox at 2am and which it only took 22 minutes to change.
Here is an atmospheric photo of that moment
plus a scoop photo of a Jaguar seen there
which did not make production!
Finally, just a few more of the photos I
took while there:
The trophy won by the D type at Bonneville:
Walter didn't just love Jaguars. Here is
a photo of him with his GT40:
