antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
Jaguar XK120 in restoration process

Restoration of Jaguar XK120 Trunk Lid

Vintage Car Works of Englewood, Colorado contacted The Metal Surgeon to enlist our help on restoring this Jaguar XK120 truck lid.  The trunk skin was in fairly bad shape, as you can see from the photos.  We discussed re-skinning the trunk lid, but if the original was salvageable it would be preferable to go that direction.  After taking the trunk lid back to our shop and inspecting it closer, we decided to restore the original.

Our first step in the approach, is to remove the bondo from the skin without disturbing the aluminum.  Secondly, we metal finish the skin using a spoon, various hand weights and a file.  Once the metal finishing is in the closing stages, we then TIG welded the license plate holes, as the plate will eventually be relocated.  The metal finishing process is continued to completion as shown below.

The whole process shown below took 15 hours start to finish.

antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
Jaguar XK120 in restoration process
antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
Damaged Jaguar trunk skin
antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
A close up of the damage
antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
First stage metal finishing
antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
AC TIG welding of license plate holes
antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
Metal finished to completion
antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, jaguar, restoration, vintage cars
Trunk lid delivered and on the Jag

Check out our other services offered.

Join our monthly newsletter by entering your email address in the upper right-hand corner of any page!