What's the big deal between Steve McQueen and the Jaguar XKSS?

Friday, 23 June 2017

Jaguar has unveiled the first of its rebuilt 1954 XKSS D-Types.

There are many amazing things about the Jaguar XKSS. It was a road going version of the D-Type racer and as such, this 1957 model is often called the 'world's first supercar'.

The XKSS is extremely rare. From an initial production run of 25 cars, nine were destroyed in a factory fire, leaving only 16 in existence.

The XKSS has been reborn. Fifty years later, the Jaguar Classic engineering team has produced nine 'continuation' models, restoring those lost cars to the lineup. The new cars conform to that 1957 specification/build as closely as possible. Use the word 'replica' at your peril: these machines are technically part of the original production run, albeit a tad late.

Steve McQueen was not only the King of Cool, but also an obsessive collector of cool cars and bikes.

An example of the NZ$1.76m continuation XKSS is being delivered to Giltrap Group in Auckland as you read this.

**READ MORE:

'Continuation' XKSS on the road. Not quite the same green as Steve McQueen's, but just as beautiful.

* Jaguar reboots a supercar legend

* The vexing question of classic-car authenticity

* Jaguar F-Type SVR goes over the top and then some**

This is all very well, but perhaps the most talked-about aspect of the XKSS was and always will be that movie star Steve McQueen once owned one. Well, actually, he owned the same one twice.

Petersen plaque for Steve McQueen's Jaguar. They might have to revise that build number now, though.

Anything automotive with a McQueen connection seems to to attain icon status. A 1970 Porsche 911S once owned by the movie star and featured in the film Le Mans sold for US$1.375m in 2011 and a 1968 Ford GT40 also used in Le Mans went for NZ$1.8m in 2012. A completely standard 1976 911 Turbo also owned by McQueen fetched $1.95m in 2015. An ex-McQueen 1967 Ferrari 275/4 went for US$10m in 2014 - nearly three times the projected value. And so on.

Now, we're not talking about McQueen's actual XKSS here: that car is now owned by the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Its estimated worth is NZ$35m.

Just nine 'new' XKSS models have been built, completing the planned (in 1957) run of 25 cars.

But any XKSS seems to benefit from the 'McQueen effect'. Enthusiasts speak about the model in awe, partly because it's so very rare and exotic, but also because it was reputed to be McQueen's favourite car.

Popular culture associates the man more with Porsche (helped by a massive marketing/merchandising effort from the company that continues to this day) or Ferrari, but it was the XKSS that was Anglophile McQueen's choice for blasting around the Hollywood Hills near his home in the 1960s.

It was also the car he lavished most attention on. According to Matt Stone in his book McQueen's Machines, the XKSS was already a two-owner vehicle before the movie star purchased it in 1958. Price: US$5000.

It was originally off-white with a bright red interior, but McQueen always favoured low-key colours for his low-flying machines and he had it refinished in British Racing Green with a black leather interior.

Kenny Howard, aka 'Von Dutch', fashioned the ultimate McQueen auto-accessory: a metal door for the storage space in the dashboard, to stop McQueen's signature Persol sunglasses from flying out when he was throwing the car around.

Thus configured, McQueen dubbed his new car the 'Green Rat'.

He kept the XKSS for 10 years and sold it to a collector in 1967. But 10 years later, in 1977, he decided he wanted it back and negotiated for two years until it was returned to the McQueen garage.

After McQueen's death in 1980, the car was sold at a 1984 estate auction to a former neighbour who undertook a complete restoration - including McQueen's quirky mods.

The XKSS was sold to the Peterson Automotive Museum in 2000, as part of a collection that includes many iconic move-related machines - including the 1967 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow (in low-key navy blue) driven by McQueen in the 1967 movie The Thomas Crown Affair.