Sometimes we just want to run a picture because it’s so damn cool.
It goes without saying that the Jaguar XKSS, one of only 18 stripped down, road going examples of Le Mans-dominating D-Type, is cool. And of course, McQueen is officially the coolest man who has ever, and probably will ever, live.
Combine the two and the levels of cool goes into hyperdrive.
Take a close look at the XKSS and you can see little hits at its true savagery. The drilled exhaust that runs under the offside sill. The drilled magnesium wheels. The exposed rivets.
Owning this car, which could make 180 MPH on the Mulsanne straight and averaged 100 MPH round the Le Mans circuit, was the equivalent of rocking up to the DVLA and trying to get road tax on one of the Audi diesels.
And look closely at McQueen himself. Check out the dark aviators. Notice the light windbreaker (probably the ubiquitous and zeitgeist hugging Harrington immortalised by James Dean, Ryan O’Neill and McQueen himself, in countless Hollywood movies.
Everything McQueen owned, from his brown 250 Lusso to his Persol Sunglasses to his Rolex, fetch silly money at auction, because of that elusive essence known as cool, an essence he bestowed upon the most unlikely of objects.
But we think you’ll agree that there’s nothing unlikely about the XKSS.
SO TRUE,
COOL AS COOL.
THERE MUST BE A SECRET ‘COOL’ HEAVEN ??