Hello all, I'm new here and have already introduced myself in another thread.
I'm not sure if forum members are familiar with Frank Gardner's fiberglass XK120 race car from the 1950's.
The story is that he built a fiberglass replica body from the original XK120 to cut weight down on the race car and refitted it to the XK chassis. I don't know the full history of it or the ins and outs but i recently had a discussion with an 88 year old gentleman from S.A who told me that there was actually more than one XK120 fiberglass body made by Frank and also a number of other fiberglass panels etc in his possession up until the late 1980's or 90's.
I am lead to believe that the fiberglass bodied XK120 that was rebuilt/ restored by Frank some time in the late 80's early 90's??? And is now in the U.K can anyone shed more light on this? Is not the actual body that was raced, the chassis is, but not the body.
The gentleman i spoke with said the original body was in a very bad condition and another fiberglass body that had been made by Frank was used on the restored race car with the remaining fiberglass etc sold to a guy in Geelong Victoria. As above, he also mentioned there were other fiberglass parts, front clips, grills and parts etc.
Does anyone have any knowledge of ,or can anyone confirm this or shed some light here? I have no reason to doubt the man and i believe his story but it would be good to hear from anyone who knew Frank and the car or the story behind it.
Thanks in advance.

 

Hi, my name is Guy Robson and this is my first post. I know this is a very long time after your original post but I can confirm Re: the fibreglass bodies for Frank's XK120. My dad and Frank were in Whale Beach Surf Crew together and I am in the process of writing an article for our club magazine (JDCA) about the XK120 (research led me to this forum). Another surf club member, who I talked with last week (4/6/25) raced with Frank at the time he had the 120 - the XK had belonged to Frank's uncle, Hope Bartlett, and Hope had given Frank the car so he would stop racing motorbikes which Hope deemed far to dangerous (although he had raced bikes for many years). Hope Bartlett had 2 XK120's at the time.
Frank deemed that the original body panels were too heavy for successfully racing the XK and I was told that Bruen Finey, a sculptor who lived in an artists commune in one of the cottages on Barrenjoey Headland, made Plaster of Paris moulds for Frank of the XK's body panels and they made fibreglass panels from those moulds.
Frank sold the car with fibreglass panels as a race car but did buy it back many years later and restored it to it's original state - I don't know what happened to it after that.
Hope this confirms the story you were told