In early 1950, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars wrote a magazine piece about his favorite sports car. The car was Clark Gable’s Jaguar XK120, chassis 670003. In it, Gable said he had run the roadster through a measured mile on a Southern California dry lake at 124 mph.
That number is Gable’s own, because he timed the run with a stopwatch and said so. Still, it tells you a lot about the man, the car and the moment when a British sports car became a Hollywood status symbol.
Here is how Gable got the car, what he wrote about it, and where chassis 670003 ended up.
The car that started at Earls Court
Jaguar showed the XK120 at the 1948 British International Motor Show at Earls Court. At first, it was only a sketch by William Lyons, Jaguar’s co-founder, and the company built the show car in two months. Underneath sat a new 3.4-liter twin-cam inline-six, and the body was aluminum over an ash frame.
The car caused a sensation, Hagerty writes. At £999, it cost about 1.5 times as much as a Cadillac Series 62. Initially, Jaguar planned about 200 cars. Instead, it built 242 aluminum-bodied roadsters at Holbrook Lane in Coventry in 1949 and 1950 before switching to steel bodies.
Of course, the name promised 120 mph. Seven months after the debut, an XK120 reached that speed, making it the fastest production car to date, Hagerty says.
How chassis 670003 reached Clark Gable
By then, Gable was already a Jaguar owner. He had a Mark IV drophead coupe, and after seeing photos of the XK120 from the 1948 London show, he became “desperate to own one at the earliest opportunity,” according to Supercar Nostalgia.
That site records chassis 670003 as the third left-hand-drive XK120. By the site’s account, Jaguar completed it in June 1949 and dispatched it to the USA on September 5. It wore Suede Green paint over a two-tone Biscuit and Red interior. By contrast, Sports Car Digest calls it the first customer car to leave the Holbrook Lane line, in June 1949.
First, the car went to Charles Hornburg, Jaguar’s West Coast distributor. From there it moved to International Motors, Roger Barlow’s dealership in Hollywood. Both men were also friends of Gable. Interestingly, Sports Car Digest says the first XK120 delivered to the West Coast was for display only and had no crankshaft in its engine.
Gable did not keep the green for long. Soon after delivery, he had the car repainted in a custom grey that he and Barlow mixed themselves. Later, people came to call it “Gable Grey.”
Clark Gable’s XK120 and the 124 mph run
In the March 1950 issue of Road & Track, Gable wrote a feature called “My Favourite Sports Car.” In it, he described taking the XK120 to one of California’s dry lakes. He wrote that “we went through the measured mile course at 124mph,” as Supercar Nostalgia quotes it.
However, Gable was candid about the timing. “Though the run was timed only by stop watch, it satisfied me,” he added. He also stressed that the car was “strictly stock.”
That is why the number belongs to Gable rather than to the record books. No official timing backs it up, and the accounts of the run do not name the lake. Even so, Gable knew the car’s official target. In the same article, he cited a record of “over 132 miles per hour for stock production cars.” Sports Car Digest likewise gives the XK120’s official top speed as 132 mph, a production-car record at the time.
Three XK120s for one movie star
Clark Gable’s XK120 habit did not stop at one car. Supercar Nostalgia says he owned three XK120 roadsters, with 670003 the first and chassis 672282 the second.
Gable took delivery of a later car in Cornwall, on the set of the 1953 film Never Let Me Go, Hagerty notes. He also had a 1952 XK120 that he sent to Barris Customs. There it received gold paint, lost its headlight spears and had its license plate moved.
How long Gable kept 670003 is not clear, Supercar Nostalgia admits. What is clear is that the car then dropped out of sight for many years.
Where chassis 670003 is now
Derek Hood of JD Classics eventually found the car near Dallas, Texas. Its owner had taken it apart and stored the parts in baskets across three sheds, Sports Car Digest reports. Of Gable’s three XK120s, it is the only one found and verified.
Afterward, JD Classics restored the car over 17 months in Maldon, Essex, and recreated the Gable Grey paint. It still carries the Automobile Club de l’Île de France, Auto Club de Suisse and AIACR badges from Gable’s ownership.
Finally, owner Jeff Lotman of Los Angeles took the car to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. There, on August 19, 2012, Clark Gable’s former XK120 won Best in Class in Postwar Sports Open, according to Sports Car Digest.
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