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his lovely D Type Jaguar stood out of the RM Auctions’ Paris sale catalogue for us. XKD 520 is number seven of the customer D Types sold by the factory, a car with a continuous competition history, spending the majority of it’s life racing in Australia. RM Auctions give fuller details of the car’s provenance and history, now living in Europe and for sale in February.
Ordered new in June 1955, through Australian importer Jack Bryson on behalf of its first owner, Bib Stillwell, a local sports car racer and future four-time consecutive winner of the open-wheel Australian Drivers’ Championship. After arriving in Melbourne in January 1956, the car was used extensively by Stillwell, setting numerous sports car records at local circuits, including the Bathurst 500 and the Rob Roy Hill Climb, and it took an outright victory at the South Australia Trophy in Port Wakefield. After briefly being prepared for a run at a landspeed record, XKD 520 returned to sports car class competition, winning the Bathurst Road Racing Championship in 1956.
The success continued with the D-Type’s performance at the Moomba Tourist Trophy at Albert Park in Melbourne, where the car roared to a 2nd place finish in March 1956, as well as the Australian Tourist Trophy at the same location in November, where the car finished 5th. Mr Stillwell’s career in XKD 520 essentially concluded the following spring on 24 March 1957, when he took 3rd place at Albert Park.
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A short time later, XKD 520 was purchased by AMPOL (the Australian Motorists Petrol Company), on behalf of Jack Davey, who was a wartime radio personality of great regional renown. It was entrusted to Bill Murray, of Surfer’s Paradise, and was prepared for the AMPOL-sponsored speed trials, but unfortunately, an accident during transport prevented the car’s participation in the race. The D-Type was then sold to enthusiast Frank Gardner, who rebuilt the still-capable race car and undertook a competition campaign of his own, taking 2nd place at Bathurst in 1958, 1st place at the Mount Druitt Hill Climb, and 3rd place at both of the Orange Racing Car Scratch Races (where he notably only lost to grand prix cars).
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In November 1958, XKD 520 was sold to David Finch, who fitted the car with a factory-supplied 3.8-litre engine, a more powerful motor that was equipped on later D-Types and sometimes sold as a replacement engine. The new engine prolonged the car’s competitive ability, allowing it to race in the Longford event of 1960 and to take 1st overall at the Queensland Tourist Trophy of 1961. Around this time, a minor incident necessitated work to the front end, and Mr Finch took the opportunity to replace the nose with a long-nose bonnet crafted by Sydney body-man Ian Standfield, in the style of the Le Mans-winning long-nose D-Types.
In May 1962, the Jaguar was purchased by Ash Marshall and treated to a thorough freshening, which included chroming multiple components. Over the next few years, the car passed through ownership by Peter Bradley and Richard Parkinson, before being acquired in 1967 by racing great Richard Attwood, the future Le Mans winner. Attwood would keep the car for some 10 years, before selling it to Sir Angus Spencer Nairn.
In 1977, Chris Keith-Lucas, then of Lynx, picked the car up from Mr Attwood’s residence on behalf of the new owner. In a letter, of which a copy is included on file, Keith-Lucas recalls the car fondly: “It was generally quite well-presented, but [it] needed a straight forward recomissioning before being sent to the new owner”.
Few businesses could be better prepared to treat XKD 520 to a light freshening. Whilst under Lynx’s care, the car was tended by managing director Chris Keith-Lucas—a recognised marque expert who would later go on to found CKL Developments, commencing a continuous period of nearly 30 years of attention by Mr Keith-Lucas.
Angus used his D-Type lightly, taking part on several track days and competing in the Mille Miglia retrospective, although the car was never seriously raced during that time. In 2004, XKD 520 was acquired by Clive Jarman. It was sent back for maintenance work by Keith-Lucas, who, by this time, had founded CKL Developments. Jarman decided to correct one feature of XKD 520 that had remained unsatisfactory to him for many years. As mentioned, the original short-nose bonnet had been replaced in 1961 with a long-nose version. As it was not entirely correct, CKL managed to source an original short-nose bonnet that had been discarded decades ago during the restoration of an XKSS. It should be noted that the Australian crafted long-nose bonnet is supplied with the car, as it remains a part of its notable history. Now with a correct-type bonnet, Mr Keith-Lucas states, “In my opinion, [this] car remains one of the best production D-Types in existence today. To the very best of my knowledge, [it] has retained its principle components since the end of the 1950s. It is one of my favourite D-Types.”
XKD 520 has been recently serviced, once again, by CKL, and it is accompanied by extensive documentation, including a FIA Historical Technical Passport. It is one of the earliest and most original examples of a customer-specification D-Type, and it is eligible for the most desirable events in the world.
Cars with such long competition history and such sparing restoration work hold particular appeal and it will be very interesting to see the final price achieved when the car is auctioned in Paris on 5th February.
Images via RM Auctions
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