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Customized Jaguar XK120 Coupe


Bernard Kron

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Last month I finished my first non-plastic model, the metal bodied 1/24th scale Monogram Jaguar XK120 Roadster. It’s a great kit that I can highly recommend. The parts fit, kit engineering and accurate details carried me a long way, despite my apprehension over doing a metal kit. Of course the vast majority of the kit is plastic, except for the body so it was really about body prep as much as anything, since I built it stock and out-of-the-box with only minor modifications.

The success of that project got me thinking about doing some additional XK120s, this time with more modifications. I bought an additional Monogram Roadster ,which I’ll be doing as a sports racer. But I also wanted to do a coupe if I could find one in 1/24th or 1/25th. It turns out that the only one I could find is the Bburago die cast. I was able to score one cheaply on eBay so I wasn’t too concerned about the quality of the model. It turns out the fit and detail of the Bburago isn’t too bad, certainly good enough that, with some care in detailing and painting, it should make a pretty nice model.

While researching this project I discovered a couple of modern Resto-mod customized coupes  that I thought were especially nice: the Justin Hills and Thornley Kelham. The Justin Hills coupe is more like a radical custom with its aggressively chopped top, smoothly shaved body and slammed stance. The Thornley Kelham car is a true modernization of the XK120 coupe while still preserving much of the original DNA. To my eyes it’s everything that’s right about a successfully done Resto-Mod. Each of these cars have elements that inspired me for my customized XK120 coupe.

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The Justin Hills XK120 custom coupe

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The Thornley Kelham XK120 “European” series resto-mod

After receiving the Bburago die-cast I blew it apart, which was quite easy because everything is either snapped or screwed together and the parts count is quite low. Despite this it’s surprisingly well detailed and should respond well to paint detailing. Next up was to lower the stance some 4+ scale inches and do a mockup of the overall look I’m going after. Here are some pics of that stage:

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Then I stripped the paint off and began the body work. The wheels and tires are pretty awful, being modern wide tires and decidedly one-dimensional wire wheels. They will have to go although I’m debating what kit to pilfer for this project. It will have to be a true 1/24th kit because the Bburago is on the large end of the 1/24th world. The pictures below show that I’ve removed the flat plinth that mounts the license at the rear of the original XK120 and filled in the tail light and turn signal holes and the outer front bumper holes. The rear bumperette mounting holes will be used to mount taillights. The square hole at the rear will become a sunken license plate mount. Chopping a metal body is wayyyyyyy beyond my pay grade so this will be a slammed “East-Coast” style custom with a stock height top. In keeping with the retro theme I’m using AMT ’36 Ford skirts. The color will be a darker metallic red with maroon wire wheels.

Thanx for lookin’
B.

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Edited by Bernard Kron
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7 minutes ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Those diecasts by Burago and others lend themselves to some rebuild/restoration work. At the cheaper end the wheels and tyres always look to be a compromise though.

True, but the alloy disc wheels available in the Lindberg D-type and the Revell XK-SS kits, or Randy Ditton's beautiful 3D printed 15" wires fix that issue up nicely; though I'm not certain if those wires are right for a Jag, they look great on just about anything.   :D

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Bill, the 3D printed wire wheels by Randy Ditton that you mentioned are something I was unaware of. Will have to look and see if he has a website.

The Lindberg and Revell Jaguar disc wheels do look nice. Had both kits at some time but sold them on.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the interest, guys.

I’ve made good progress on this project. The bodywork was completed. I filled and smoothed the front fender mounted turn signal mounting holes, the outer front bumper mounting holes, the hood badge indentation, the taillight mounting holes and indentations and closed and filled the side vents just in front of the door. As mentioned last time, the rear deck had the rectangular license plaint plinth shaved off to create a continuous rear deck line. I have switched out the front wire wheels for a set of Borranis from the Academy Ferrari 250 LM kit with AMT Firestones adapted to fit. The rear tires and wheels are the Bburagos from the die cast, but they are completely hidden by the fender skirts. The skirts themselves have changed from my initial idea to use the AMT ’36 Ford bubble skirts. After some reflection I decided they conflicted a little with the purity of the XK120’s fender lines and so I fabricated a set of flush skirts from styrene sheet. They are much like the stock skirts that came with the car when you ordered steel wheels rather than wire wheels. The body has been painted Tamiya TS-11 Maroon over red oxide primer. The interior has been painted in Testors Acryl Leather.  I still have to polish out the paint, complete and detail the motor and mount the lighting, glass, windshield wipers, etc. as well as foil the trim around the windows.

Thanx for lookin;,
B.

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Stance-and-interior-detal-web.jpg

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This project is now completed. I’ll take the final “beauty shots” once I do the final cleanup. In the meantime here are some detail shots. The first picture chows the final “customized” version compared to an original Bburago die cast in a front ¾ view. The second panel show various detail, including the smoothed rear deck with the molded in license plate and teardrop taillights from a Revell ’32 Ford 3-window coupe mounted on Model Car Garage photo-etch backings. as shown in the cleaned up front end. The fog lamps are the small hot rod headlamps that come in the various Revell Deuce kits. Also shown are the final engine detail and an assembled interior shot.

The Bburago model is engineered to snap together. In fact the plastic parts are made of some mysterious substance that resists styrene glue and even adheres poorly to epoxy. Fortunately this is a pretty mild custom, so the need to glue parts down was kept to a minimum.

This was a fun project with an extremely low parts count and an emphasis on finish and execution and a vision of simplifying and cleaning up the stock version to emphasize the beauty of the original design. Lowering it was part of that strategy, as was adding back the flush skirts.

Much appreciation to all of you for your comments and for following along.

Thanx for lookin',
B.

Bburago-Comparo-web.jpg
Final-detail-summary-web.jpg

 

Edited by Bernard Kron
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