In 1957 Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti was presented with the opportunity to do the design for completely new coachwork for a Jaguar XK140 SE. He took on the challenge and created a unique design, transforming that Jaguar into a unique car.
Fast Facts
- Giovanni Michelotti was an imaginative and prolific automotive designer credited with many cars for Ferrari and Maserati, and also for BMW, and for British Leyland among others.
- In 1957 Michelotti was presented with the opportunity to create new bodywork for a Jaguar XK140 SE that had been crashed.
- Michelotti created completely new aluminium bodywork for the car making it a completely unique car by a famous designer.
- This car is coming up for sale by RM Sotheby’s as a partially restored project car.
Giovanni Michelotti was an astoundingly prolific designer and he was responsible for the designs of many cars from such makers as Ferrari and Maserati, and also for many that might be considered more mundane – such as his many designs for British Leyland which included the Triumph Herald, TR4 and TR5 – designs which took cars that could have been rather ordinary and transformed them into cars that were quite extraordinary.
Born in Turin in 1922 Michelotti’s father was a boss of the engine machine shop for car maker Itala so his family were very much involved in Italy’s motor industry in its early days.
Young Giovanni left school at sixteen at gained and apprenticeship with Stabilimenti Farina: and it was there that his talent and conscientiousness first began to shine.
The Second World War put the brakes on his career for a while but after it was over, in 1949, he was able to go it alone and establish his own design studio working in his apartment in Turin. From there he did work for such makers as Alfa Romeo and design houses Bertone and Ghia among others.
It was in 1957 that Michelotti was presented with an interesting challenge in the form of a Jaguar XK140 SE that had been involved in a crash. The bodywork was damaged but the owner wanted Michelotti to design new bodywork with a completely new look.
This car, chassis S 814286, was a golden opportunity for Michelotti to work his creative gifting on and he took on the job, it quite probably served to demonstrate his skills to Jaguar and leaders in the British motor industry.
A Jaguar XK140 SE was a wonderful canvas on which a design artist could wield his creative energy, and this would be his second opportunity to work on one of these cars.
Michelotti’s design was for a fastback coupé style coachwork that looked totally unlike the British design for the original Jaguar. This was a design that was iconically Italian: it arguably looked rather more like something from Ferrari than something from Jaguar, but that was the advantage of the old-fashioned body-on-chassis construction: it allowed for the creation of unique and beautiful coachwork.
At the front was a low oval grill while on the bonnet/hood was a subtle but quietly aggressive air intake. The car’s high waistline flowed gracefully from front to rear culminating in a sharp downward turn at the tail.
The interior of the car retained the original Jaguar four spoke steering wheel but the dashboard was a new design incorporating two large combined gauges with a speedometer incorporating the fuel, water temperature and oil pressure gauges, and turn indicators. On the right was an equally large tachometer incorporating starter, dynamo and town lights indicators.
This layout was one which placed all that information in the driver’s direct line of sight and so was very practical as well as being aesthetic.
The history of the Michelotti completed car is not known until it was discovered by Roland Urban, President of the Jaguar Drivers’ Club in France, who is a collector of rare and unusual Jaguars.
Interestingly at the time of its acquisition by Roland Urban the car was fitted with a Jaguar C-Type engine block which would seem to suggest that a previous owner had been performance oriented.
This C-Type engine block was changed for a production correct engine block which was installed by CKL Developments between October 2023 and April 2024.
In 1999 the car went into the ownership of Mr Schepens of Ghent who was a coachbuilder and who had a great affection for the car, using it often.
Mr Schepens decided to commit to a complete restoration of the car and began the work, but sadly he passed away in 2016 before that restoration could be completed.
The car was sold in 2018 and purchased by Jaguar Classic, the marque’s own heritage department. They accumulated many of the parts needed to complete the restoration but did not actually attempt to continue it.
This car is now being presented for sale and should be an attractive proposition for someone interested in completing this car’s restoration: its uniqueness, and blending of beautiful Italian Michelotti design with the wonderful Jaguar chassis and mechanicals is pretty much guaranteed to produce a highly satisfying ownership and driving experience.
This car is being presented for sale by RM Sotheby’s at their Cliveden House auction to be held on 12th June 2024 at Cliveden House & Spa, Taplow, Berkshire, SL6 0JF, United Kingdom.
You can find the sale page for this quite fascinating restoration project car if you click here.
Picture Credits: All pictures courtesy Neil Fraser ©2024 RM Sotheby’s
Jon Branch is the founder and senior editor of Revivaler and has written a significant number of articles for various publications including official Buying Guides for eBay, classic car articles for Hagerty, magazine articles for both the Australian Shooters Journal and the Australian Shooter, and he’s a long time contributor to Silodrome.
Jon has done radio, television, magazine and newspaper interviews on various issues, and has traveled extensively, having lived in Britain, Australia, China and Hong Kong. His travels have taken him to Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan and a number of other countries. He has studied the Japanese sword arts and has a long history of involvement in the shooting sports, which has included authoring submissions to government on various firearms related issues and assisting in the design and establishment of shooting ranges.
