Intended as a concept car to showcase Jaguars’ remarkable new twin-cam inline six-cylinder engine, the XK 120’s breathtaking styling and groundbreaking performance created a sensation at the 1948 London Motor Show.

Jaguar rushed the largely hand-built aluminum-bodied XK 120 into production, but with time and delivery pressures mounting, it soon reengineered the car for mass production using steel bodies.

A mere 242 aluminum examples were built before the XK 120 shifted to steel production, making the lighter, handcrafted aluminum cars forever rare and desirable.

The example offered here is believed to be one of 184 left-hand drive alloy cars built.

It was completed on 16 December 1949 and shipped to Canadian distributor James L.

Cooke Motors in Toronto, Canada, according to its Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust certificate.

The original dealer is not recorded, but it is likely to have been Cooke Motors, and the “date of dispatch” is listed as January 1950.

Then, as now, it was finis...