The Walter Hill Collection
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 been able 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 favourite 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.
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 concours 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 colours 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 which 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 tropy won by the D type at Bonneville:-
Walter didn't just love Jaguars. Here is a photo of him with his GT40
