Ask how many XK140s Jaguar built and you will be told 8,935, or 8,937, or 8,943, or 8,948, or 8,951, or 8,956, depending where you look. Jaguar's own heritage website says 8,956. Wikipedia, citing the Heritage Trust, says 8,937.
The explanation is that the Trust's underlying production table has two columns — chassis numbers allocated, and cars actually built — and its own web page has conflated them. 8,956 is the number of chassis numbers used. 8,937 is the number of cars built. Every source downstream has picked one column without knowing there were two.
The same confusion explains a long-running argument about right-hand-drive roadsters. You will see 73 and you will see 74. Both are correct, for different questions: 74 chassis numbers were allocated, 73 complete cars were built, and the seventy-fourth was a chassis-only special build. A source that gives one figure without the other is losing information rather than settling anything.
Of those right-hand-drive roadsters, the Heritage Trust records that only 45 found home-market customers — a separate and much less quoted figure, and a striking one.
By body style
| Body | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Open Two Seater | 3,349 or 3,356 | Wikipedia / Jaguar Heritage |
| Fixed Head Coupe | 2,798 | Wikipedia |
| Drophead Coupe | 2,790 | Wikipedia |
| Open Two Seater | 3,356 | Viart |
| Fixed Head Coupe | 2,809 | Viart |
| Drophead Coupe | 2,791 | Viart |
Viart's three body totals add up to 8,956, which his table calls chassis built. Wikipedia's coupe and drophead figures are 11 and 1 lower. The page above reads 8,956 as chassis numbers used rather than cars built; Viart's label reads it as chassis built. Both are recorded here, and we have not established which is right.
The split between standard, Special Equipment and C-type cars has never been published in full. Partial figures suggest roughly 57% of left-hand-drive cars and 24% of right-hand-drive cars were Special Equipment with the C-type head. The complete table exists, but only inside Clausager.
By year, body and drive
From Bernard Viart, Jaguar XK 140 Explored, page 125 (Plate 1-b2), "Production — Annual Numbers". Each cell gives right-hand drive / left-hand drive.
| Body | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open Two Seater | 8 / 617 | 54 / 1,370 | 12 / 1,134 | 0 / 161 | 3,356 (74 RHD, 3,282 LHD) |
| Fixed Head Coupe | 6 / 3 | 585 / 1,265 | 252 / 693 | 0 / 5 | 2,809 (843 RHD, 1,966 LHD) |
| Drophead Coupe | 6 / 111 | 336 / 1,128 | 137 / 1,065 | 1 / 7 | 2,791 (480 RHD, 2,311 LHD) |
| Year total | 751 | 4,738 | 3,293 | 174 | 8,956 chassis built |
Automatics, in the same source: 397 fixed head coupes (7 right-hand drive, 390 left-hand drive) and 433 drophead coupes (4 right-hand drive, 429 left-hand drive).
Right-hand-drive fixed head coupe chassis ranges: 804001–804006 in 1954, 804007–804591 in 1955, 804592–804843 in 1956, and none assembled in 1957. The last XK140 built was 813282, a left-hand-drive open two seater, in 1957.
Viart's 74 right-hand-drive roadsters agrees with the 74 chassis numbers allocated above; his table does not separate out the chassis-only build.
WPK38, chassis 804053, falls in the 1955 range. Its Heritage Certificate gives manufacture on 15 March 1955 and despatch on 31 March 1955, which agrees.
Clausager's figures
Anders Ditlev Clausager's XK140/150 in Detail has not yet been compared with the figures above; they will be added here when transcribed. As Chief Archivist of the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, Clausager signed WPK38's own Heritage Certificate.