A classic British sports car the Jaguar XK150 was a supercar of its day and an underrated classic in the world of million-dollar restored Porsche 911s
Richard Hammond’s classic car collection would make most of us weak in the knees. Only with a lifetime of motoring adventures under his belt, only a few cars left on this planet make the iconic gearhead swoon. Not his classic Mustang, nor the Drivetribe Dodge Charger, but a classic Jaguar. With a classic look, the perfect amount of power from its six-cylinder engine an eye-catching exterior it’s easy to see why the XK150 has Hammond’s heart.
The XK150 saw production in the late 1950s before the era-defining Jaguar E-type made its first appearance at the Geneva motor show. The final model in the XK lineup before the XK8 returned in 1996.
A classic British sports car the Jaguar XK150 was a supercar of its day and an underrated classic in the world of million-dollar restored Porsche 911s.
Richard Hammond’s Collection Of Cars Is Worth Over $500,000
TV presenter and automotive Richard Hammond for nearly two decades on Top Gear and the Grand Tour drove cars that we can only dream of. From humble beginnings, Hammond started out in Birmingham in the United Kingdom. At the time this part of the United Kingdom still had influential car manufacturers, essentially England’s Detroit. As a result, he has a particular penchant for cars from this area of the United Kingdom.
Now no longer presenting Top Gear or the Grand Tour, Hammond runs a series of businesses including a classic car restoration company and DriveTribe. On the latter’s YouTube Channel, he reveals what cars in his collection really do make his knees weak.
Of course, not just an aficionado for those things on four wheels, Hammond regularly got berated by Clarkson for his love of the motorbike. Richard Hammond’s collection features nostalgia-infested bikes like the Suzuki GSX. With only 6,000 miles on the clock, it is a low-mileage classic. But there are also a few cars that feature heavily on the internet. Hammond’s 1968 Highland Green Ford Mustang GT300 has been a part of his collection for over a decade and the presenter seems just as besotted with now as he was then. Classic, an aggregator of used car prices, takes the average price of such a Ford Mustang at $72,159, although the best examples approach nearly $300,000
But one part of Hammond’s collection seems incredibly special, his light grey Jaguar XK150. The predecessor to the highly successful and epochal Jaguar E-type, the XK150 saw production in Coventry, just down the road from Birmingham from 1957 to 1961. Stylistically it continues the motifs found in the XK120 and XK140. Classic found the average value of the Jaguar XK150 at $108,691 but examples sold for nearly $850,000.
Hammond said: “It’s in its original dove grey with red interior, I adore it. I adore it because above all else, the looks, the feel the heart of it, that straight six engine was; still is and always will be a masterpiece.”
The presenter’s car collection has shrunk over recent years selling his classic 911 and Lotus Esprit to fund his business endeavors. This is similar to his former co-star Jeremy Clarkson who has also sold most of his collection, leaving behind an old Alfa Romeo and aging Range Rovers.
This Is How Many Jaguar XK150s Still Drive
Although the XK150 was incredibly successful for Jaguar it never saw as great a success as the Jaguar E-type. According to the Jaguar Heritage Trust, a total of 9,382 Jaguar XK150 cars left the company’s factory. The majority of these were of course hard top coupes but just over 2,500 examples of both the Roadster and Drophead Coupe saw production.
In Britain, records are open of how many cars of a certain type remain on British roads. Unfortunately, these records only go back as far as 1972, over a decade after the Jaguar XK150 went out of production. According to Car Logbook, a service that scans MOTs, the certification a car needs to be road legal in the United Kingdom, there are only 4 XK150s that are road legal still. This doesn’t include exports, but more than likely the number of XK150s left will struggle to reach double digits.
This Is The Difference Between a Jaguar XK140 and a Jaguar XK150
There isn’t much of a difference between the Jaguar XK140 and XK150. Both share the same classical British sports car styling. Both cars have an inline-six engine. In the XK140 this made a maximum of 210 horsepower from a 3.4-liter unit. The 3.4 inline six continued in the XK150 with an 83mm bore and 106mm stroke. However, Jaguar also produced a bored-out version, the 3.8-liter unit which had a bore of 87 mm resulting in this increase in displacement. This increased power to 269 horsepower. This doesn’t like much today, but with the car weighing 2,968 lbs, these cars pack plenty of punch.
The Jaguar XK120 was the fastest production car of its time when it achieved 132.6 mph in top speed tests. Perhaps emblematic of the wider British car industry, the XK series of cars failed to keep up with European sports cars that would emerge in the latter half of the 20th century. So in terms of top speed and overall equipment, little progress occurred with each generation.
Hammond also has one of these XK120s tucked away in his overflow barn, but without an engine or interior, this is literally just the chassis. Although beautiful with its curves, without that engine Hammond looks at with a hint of sadness, the restoration project car that hasn’t had the work done.
