"I was intrigued by Daniel Shanahan’s XK120 when it was first posted and nobody seems to have come forward with much information for him.  I thought it looked like a missing link between the racing C type (which properly should be referred to as an XK120C) and the XK road cars. 

The truth behind the styling may not be as a direct result of a competition orientation at all.  At the weekend I visited a Jaguar specialist here in the UK who has two similar looking cars. One is an XK120 lightweight that does actually have C type faired in headlamps. His other car is very similar to Daniel’s and he informed me that it was one of seven XK120s that George Barris restyled.  Apparently new cars were shipped to Barris and he used Porsche 356 headlamps and buckets to achieve a very similar look to the C type lights. Why or how this arrangement came about I do not know.

The car I saw in England was not supercharged but was wearing Borrani alloy rim wire wheels, which, I was told, was also part of the Barris ‘package’ –- Daniels car does not appear to have these, however. 

Looking again at the photos on your site, the rear lights look to have been ‘frenched’  - maybe another clue to it being a Barris car? I did not think to look at the rear of the car I saw here in the UK.

I appreciate this may not be much help – possibly even a red herring – but it could point to an interesting history."