Steve McQueen died well before the XK8/R series were even thought of, and he had way better taste.

 

Steve McQueen owned a Jaguar XKSS
He bought it in 59, sold it in 69 and bought it back in 78 and owned it until his death in 80.
It was British racing green.

 

Had to post one more pic. He is the coolest and the jag doesn't hurt! Why don't our actors today look this cool?? I could see Daniel Craig in this pic!

 

$79,000!! They should knock a few thousand off for those doors alone.

 

I remember that T-Bird in the back as well. Off the top of my head, I think it is a '62 or '63. My rich uncle bought a new one for himself every year and bought his wife a convertible Cadillac.

I remember when she took us all for a ride in one like this.
For a little country boy, it was like getting a ride in a space ship.

 

Let's not forget that most special of editions



I think that looks brilliant

 

Don't let philhef see that!

 

 

I will never understand why American designers in the late 50s and early 60s ever thought fins would look good. Oversized land barges with fins. I have always found american cars to be the tackiest when it comes to design.

 

Too late!, It's in the body shop as we speak!!

 

Please tell me that Jagalac is a Photoshop horror. True story: When I was a kid, a police horse in Times Square got spooked for some reason and impaled itself on a Caddy's tail fins. If I recall correctly, the cop had no choice but to shoot the poor thing. How sad is that.

 

I think that I read somewhere that the fins were an outgrowth of the beginning of the jet plane era. It wasn't until there were jet planes that they had those swept back wings like the fins on the cars were imitating.

In fact, the first time that I saw an XKE, there was a certain aircraft looking design about it. Perhaps a bit more tasteful than the wings on the American cars however.

OK, after I posted that, I went and did a search and found this.

http://autos.aol.com/article/tail-fins/


Thirty vintage rides with eye-catching fins were on display, including a 1956 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, '57 Chevrolet Bel Air, '60 Desoto Fireflite, '60 Chrysler Imperial Crown Convertible, '58 Ford Thunderbird, '58 Packard Hawk, '58 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special, '57 Ford Fairlane 500 Convertible and a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz.
And I'm here to tell you, some of these fins were so high and long and "wing-like" that that it appeared they could help launch the cars into the clouds. And that seems as good a place as any to start with my below list -- let's call it "Six Interesting Things About Tail Fins That You Might Not Know."
1) Inspired by the Jet Age
Getting back to the notion that these tail fins, in many cases, looked like they could help the vehicles go airborne:
"The first tail fins, and the ones that followed for several years, were a response to America's post-war fascination with the jet age," said Jeff Leestma, president of the Automotive Hall of Fame. "At that point, air travel had evolved from using propellers to jet engines, and everyone was fascinated with this new jet age. And the stylists at the car companies, particularly at General Motors and Chrysler, really embraced that sensibility in terms of their designs."

 

The designer of the E Type Malcolm Sayer was also an aircraft designer.

 

giandanielxk8,

Before you criticize all American Car designs, just think of some of the brilliantly sculpted bodies of such cars as a 1963 Corvette, or a 1968 GTO, or even a 2013 CTS coupe. There have been many memorable designs, and by the way, the Europeans put fins on their cars of the same era as well. They might not have been as big and gaudy, but their cars were certainly as ugly or uglier.

 

It was also the early space age fascination. Sputnik launch and rocket ships in early sci fi.

 

You Brits were guilty too!!

 

Stunning example of a British disaster!!

 

Ugly European cars?

Who remembers these?

 

How about a Ferrari with fins?

 

I enjoyed my adolescent years during this era and recall waiting towards the end of each year to see what changes were in store for the next model car year. Those were the days when styling changes from year to year were quite dramatic. I recall the most over-the-top design to my mind was the 1959 Buick that looked like something out of Buck Rogers!

Doug