As soon as the XK120 was launched, it was raced.

Announced in the spring of 1949, there were already three cars competing at Silverstone in August that year.

The factory in Coventry led the charge, but there was also a small army of privateers, with varying levels of professional experience, working out how to make their new sports car go faster.

This gave rise to what many now consider the archetypical ‘club racer’: the fast road XK that could be driven to the circuit, raced and then driven home afterwards.

Chassis 660733 is very much in that idiom.

An original Right Hand Drive Roadster, it was exported to the USA when new, supplied via Hoffman’s of New York to dealer Jack Pry in Washington before passing to its first owner, Mrs Betty Swadley.

By 1969 the car was owned by Arthur Napolitino of Massachusetts, before being sold to Larry Berman in 1978.

A lifelong Jaguar enthusiast, Berman is today the owner and curator of a museum dedicated to Briggs Cunningham.

Between 1980 and ...