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In January 1953 Clara and Tullamore district was introduced to its very own ‘bat mobile’ the recently launched sports car, the Jaguar XK120. After the austerity years of WW II its sleek design and incredible speed was said to have inspired the creators of the fictitious ‘bat mobile’ in 1966. It was owned by Larry Egan of Gayfield, Clonminch Road. Larry was joint managing director (with his relation Paddy [P. V.] Egan, Cloncon and later Spollanstown) of the firm P. & H. Egan Limited headquartered on Tullamore’s Bridge Street. Their relation and good friend, Clara’s ace motorcar and motorcycle racer Charlie O’Hara raced it for them.

‘The most famous XK120 owner was Clark Gable. His car is a 1952 model that he ordered with several competition options, he used it for a weeks-long road trip across Europe with his rumoured fiancé Suzanne Dadolle, and then had it shipped back to the United States’.¹

Fig 1. ‘Gone with the Wind’. The original Jaguar XK120, owned by actor Clark Gable.

Little was known of what happened to the car until recently. The story of its relocation is an incredible one, and the original Egan Jaguar XK120 has been fully restored and is back on the road since September 2023.

The Car

Announced as the world’s fastest production car on debut at the London Motor Show in 1948, the Jaguar XK120 clocked 120 mph.

Designed by legendary Jaguar engineer William Heynes, a total of 1170 right hand drive open two seaters were first produced at Holbrook Lane in Coventry, England. Some were completely knocked down (CKD) versions which were later imported to Ireland and assembled by motor engineers Frank Cavey & Sons Ltd 54/55 Lower Camden Street. The car was powered by a 3.4 litre double overhead cam, straight six-cylinder engine.  Using 80 Octane petrol (scarce in the post war years, only ‘poor petrol’ 70 Octane was mainly available) it produced 184 kWh at 6,000rpm.

• The new car caused an absolute sensation in post-WW II Britain, it was only meant to be a limited production model, but the demand was such that it went into full production, and Jaguar struggled to make enough of them.
• The XK120 was replaced by the upgraded Jaguar XK140 in 1954, which in turn was replaced by the Jaguar XK150 in 1957. The 13-year production run of the XK series helped establish Jaguar as a leading manufacturer of sports cars, further assisted by their five wins at Le Mans throughout the 1950s.²

The Story

On the 20 March 2023, the Egan’s Whiskey website www.eganswhiskey.com inbox had the following message: ‘We are currently restoring an historic Jaguar XK120 which we’re told was previously owned by Egan’s. The restoration is being marketed by my company as a showpiece for our work in the Classic Car industry, and the story has already been featured in our press releases.’ It was from owner Chris Metcalfe, proprietor of AIC Insurance, based in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

The story of what was to unfold is simply amazing.

Chris contacted Brendan McCoy, a committee member of the Irish Jaguar & Daimler Club. Brendan is a renowned lover of classic sports cars and a heralded classic sports car historian. Brendan had it that the car’s registration number ZL 6975 was owned by the Egan’s of Tullamore and was often raced by Charlie O’Hara of Clara. He fortuitously held the original registration papers which had the first registration under the name Henry L Egan. Chris asked: ‘Was the car owned by a Henry Egan’. This threw me as the only Henry Egan of the time that I was aware of  was my father, called Harry Egan. Harry was an owner and racer of MG’s, representing the Midlands Motor Car and Motorcycle Club, but never owned a Jaguar.³ However, from previous research, I recalled that Larry Egan was named Henry Lawrence Egan or Henry L. Egan.⁴ Dermot McAuley of Dublin, a relation of Larry’s recalls: ‘I was visiting Tullamore with my mother Joan (née Egan) at the family home, The Hall, in the early 1950s, and for a young boy seeing that Jaguar XK 120 was like seeing something from outer space’.

Footnote: Larry Egan was the owner of the racehorse Jack Chaucer, the Irish Grand National winner at Fairyhouse in 1940. The trainer was Cecil Brabazon and the jockey J Lenehan.⁵

Fig 2. The original registration book, courtesy of Brendan McCoy and the Irish Jaguar and Daimler Club.

Brendan researched and confirmed the car was bought new by Civil Construction company Gratton’s of Dublin who sold it to Larry Egan in 1953. So, the registration book is a replacement, but contains all the original details including the date of first registration. In speaking to his friend Don Roe Kissane, he reckons that a bloke he knew, Charlie O’Hara, raced the Jaguar while the Egan’s owned it.

          Equally, he ascertained a friend from Clondalkin confirmed the Fred Dagnall ownership. When Brendan spoke to Don Kissane he confirmed that he bought it from Peter Dyer Simpson in Rathmines, but the sale was much more complicated. He thought he was selling it to Ronnie Peffers, but it was actually to Joan Litser (née O’Sullivan) who eventually moved to New Zealand with the car. Brendan says he was in contact with both Joan and Ronnie many years ago but at the time they didn’t know the registration of the car.

Fig 3. Don Kissane Number 57, seen here racing the Jaguar XK120 around the Phoenix Park circuit in 1962. Courtesy Brendan McCoy and Don Kissane.

In further conversations Brendan learned that Don also repainted the car from dove grey to black and there’s a partial photo of him wearing a crash helmet in it (presumably) in that colour.

Charlie O’Hara was a renowned sports car and motorcycle racer, motor mechanic, and aviation stunt pilot. He also was a fighter pilot for the RAF in WWII. Born in Clara to a prominent medical family, Charlie was the son of Dr Martin O’Hara (b 18 Jan 1881 d 9 Mar 1951), and Eleanor Adams (b 21 Mar 1887 d 28 Jun 1963).⁶ Eleanor was a sister of P. F. Adams whose wife was Rosaleen Egan of The Hall, Tullamore. Charlie’s brother Dr Brendan O’Hara (b 2 Aug 1912) was also a motorcar racer and president of the Midlands Motor and Motorcycle Club. Another Clara brother Dr Aidan O’Hara (b 25 Sept 1928) practiced at Moate, Co Westmeath before moving to work in Tanzania and then to Dublin. Charlie had three other brothers, Arthur (b 29 Apr 1920), Redmond (b 11 Aug 1913) and Leo G O’Hara (went on to become a successful businessman in Scotland, d 26 Jan 2013). He also had a sister Mary called Maeve O’Hara (15 July 1915). Charlie was the stunt pilot in the Bat Boone 1964 movie ‘Never put it in Writing’.⁷

Footnote: Don Kissane lives in Stepaside, Dublin and for years presided over Dixon’s news agency on Georges Street Upper in Dun Laoghaire. Tipperary born, his family had a pharmacy in the town, he was a boarder at Blackrock College and holds two junior and three senior rugby cup medals, a record. He played rugby for Leinster before following his lifelong love, motor car racing.

Fig 4. Charlie O’Hara, from Clara in his Midlands Motor and Motorcycle Club jersey raced the Egan’s Jaguar XK120 in 1953, he later bought and raced his own Jaguar XK120 registration ZL 8060, seen on right. Courtesy Brendan McCoy, Jack Kingston and Irish Vintage Scene magazine, August 2022.

Fig 5. The original license book, courtesy of Brendan McCoy and the Irish Jaguar and Daimler Club.

Brendan and his friend Don Kissane had several nostalgic conversations about school and university days, cars, race meetings and recalls days of fun, friendship and laughter. He writes:

‘Ireland of the 1950s and early 60s was a dull and dour place in the depths of an economic recession. The young men of the Dublin University Motorcycle and Light Car Club (‘the DU’) were better off than most, with many being able to afford to run a motorbike and the occasional fortunate one, such as Paddy Hopkirk even having access to a car. Most were still forced to emigrate in order to start their careers once they graduated. One such was engineer David Litser who prospered in New Zealand, but then as now, found that cars were much more expensive there than in Europe as they were subject to high rates of import duty unless brought in as a change of residence. Back in Dublin, in the summer of 1962, he was able to propose to his girlfriend Joan O’Sullivan, buy an Austin Healey 3000, and ask his friend Ron Peffers (later emigrated to South Africa) to look out for a suitable sports car for Joan to take with her when she joined him the following year. A larger-than-life engineering student Ron found his metier as social secretary of the DU organising pre-event drinks in the Lincoln’s Inn and post event prizegivings in various hotels around town, though club members had a habit of removing items of furniture as souvenirs at the time and were rarely allowed back into the same hotel twice.  Ron rode a 998cc Vincent Black Shadow which was said to terrify spectators when he hill climbed it, and which none were brave or foolish enough to ride pillion on. (In 2009 Top Gear did one of their challenges, Race to the North, were they competed in a steam train, an XK120 and a Vincent Black Shadow to see who could get from London to Edinburgh the fastest.)

                      The car was eventually shipped to England and thence to New Zealand where it was the Litser’s everyday car for a few years. Joan’s main memory of the car was of it regularly refusing to start due to a sticking petrol pump and being given a hammer to tap under the seat to encourage it into life. David entered the XK, now reregistered as HF5021, in a few local sprints and hill climbs and made a small profit on the eventual sale. The car made it back to England and in 1984 was bought by David Eldred and much later was bought by present owner Chris Metcalfe.

          In my interaction with Chris and Brendan we have been amazed as to the many dots we were all able to put together and how the story kept on giving. The luck that Brendan had procuring the original registration book, deciphering the black painted body to its original dove grey and the chance that Chris took in reaching out to Egan’s Irish Whiskey on their website. After seventy years, the Egan Jaguar XK120, Clara’s and Tullamore’s very own ‘bat mobile’ has been lovingly restored.

Who knows, maybe one day I may be able to drive it down Clara’s Main Street and Tullamore’s High Street where it started off its fabled around the world adventures.

Fig 6. The fully refurbished old Egan family Jaguar XK120 from 1953, as raced by Clara’s Charlie O’Hara. Back on the road for the first time in 42 years. Courtesy Chris Metcalfe.

….ends

Bibliography

1. Silodrome Gasoline Culture Available at https://silodrome.com/clark-gable-1952-jaguar-xk120/ Accessed 18 June 2023
2. Ibid.  
3. The Evening Herald. 1953, 11 March.
4. Genealogy Ireland. Available at: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1907/01686/1670078.pdf (Accessed on: 22 June 2023)
5. The Irish Press. 1940, 26 March.
6. Genealogy Ireland. Available at: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1963/04284/4102763.pdf (Accessed: 18 June 2023)
7. British Film Institute. Available at: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2bab4901cd (Accessed on: 20 May 2023)

Fig 7. Clara’s Dr Brendan O’Hara, president of the Midlands Motorcar and Motorcycle Club. What’s the car?

Fig 8. Ace motor car and motorcycle racer, RAF pilot and stunt pilot, Clara’s Charlie O’Hara had his garage just off Dublin’s Camden Street in 1955.