Hansgen Special: Jaguar-based racer meets its inspiration

By Julian Balme

| 23 Aug 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Jaguar C-type vs Hansgen Special: homespun sports-racer

When Walter Edwin ‘Walt’ Hansgen was bitten by the racing bug, it bit hard.

He wasn’t that young – 32 when he made his debut – but he was hugely ambitious, and certainly not there to make up the numbers.

Initially, the blue-blazered East Coast racing establishment was wary of this aggressive upstart from New Jersey, his presence right from the off unsettling the cosy, gentlemanly atmosphere prevalent in the early post-war years of sports-car racing in the USA.

‘It took most of the year to complete the Special, and Walt reckoned he could have bought more than one Jaguar C-type for the price’

Walt’s first major race in 1951 at the upstate New York road course of Watkins Glen set the tone.

The 6.6-mile loop at the foot of Seneca Lake crossed the New York Central Railroad tracks two-thirds of the way down the suitably named Railroad Straight.

At one of the fastest sections of the circuit, the open crossing with exposed rails was a punishing assault on suspension – and anything else hanging beneath – because cars could be airborne for several yards.

Within a few laps of the grandly named Watkins Glen Grand Prix, Hansgen’s silver Jaguar XK120, in only its second outing, shed an exhaust mounting.

American racer Walter Hansgen was a rough diamond early on – his tactics upset some in the Sports Car Club of America

Undeterred, he got back to the pits where a team member set to work with baling wire.

With the exhaust lashed up, Walt tore back into the 15-lapper in hot pursuit of his class rival, Sherwood Johnson, in a similar black Jaguar.

A combination of red mist, determination and a ladleful of raw talent soon drew the two roadsters together.

For the few remaining laps the pair diced nose-to-tail, much to the crowd’s delight.

The Jaguar straight-six got triple carburettors for the XK120-based Hansgen Special

Not so the officials of the organising Sports Car Club of America.

For them, the battle was too intense, and when Hansgen missed his braking point and tapped the rear of Sherwood’s XK, they became apoplectic.

After being hauled over the coals, Walt had his race licence suspended and would see out the rest of the season as a spectator.

Nevertheless, he had arrived; his second in class and ninth overall at the Glen didn’t go unnoticed, and without the mechanical drama he might have finished fifth behind the Cunninghams, Ferrari and Allards.

The Hansgen Special and the car that inspired it – Jaguar’s C-type

The XK had been acquired after Hansgen witnessed the previous year’s race, which he’d followed by driving his wife, Bea, to the local Jaguar dealership in Morristown to ask what she thought of the elegant cat in the window.

She unsurprisingly nodded her approval, but was shocked to see the car parked on her drive the following evening.

With the sole intention of going racing, Walt had borrowed the money from his mother to buy the roadster, which was subsequently christened ‘Quicksilver’.

The pair made their debut at Bridghampton, the up-and-coming venue at the far end of Long Island, on 24 May 1951 in the highly competitive Production class of a sports-car race, against seven other XKs.

Jaguar XK120 dials remain in the homebuilt Hansgen Special

Hansgen acquitted himself fairly well, running mid-pack before spinning after a mistake on the final lap.

Throughout that first year, he contested as many hillclimbs and driving tests as he could (his licence suspension only applied to racing), and thus entered 1952 a proficient XK120 pilot.

He had also confirmed his suspicions about the Jaguar’s shortcomings, which were then consolidated by the arrival of the factory’s Competition version, or C-type as it became known.

Not interested in finishing first among the runners-up, and with no influence on the Coventry company, which was being very particular over to whom it sold its exclusive new racing car, he elected to build his own.

A plaque celebrates Walt Hansgen’s Watkins Glen Grand Prix victory in 1953

To be fair, it wasn’t such an ambitious notion.

Walt’s father, Fred, had established FK Hansgen in the early days of the century, primarily repairing horse-drawn carriages and coaches before turning his attention to automobiles.

The business in Westfield, New Jersey, went from strength to strength, making it an even more attractive workplace for his car-crazy, high-school-graduate son.

In creating his Special, Walt was also aided by the wealth of talent employed by his father – not least metal maestro Emil Hoffman, who would go on to create the lion’s share of the new racing car.

The Hansgen Special’s distinctive inboard headlights were inspired by the Healey Silverstone

Nevertheless, despite Walt’s drive, ambition, and access to the material and the skills of his father’s team, the build took 14 months.

At the start of 1952, Walt tore into dismantling his silver XK to provide the components for his Special.

He and Hoffman would utilise most of the running gear, including the modified 3.4-litre XK motor with higher compression and hotter cams.

The transmission and front suspension were unchanged, but to the rear was a unique, coil-sprung and radius-rod arrangement, laterally located by a Panhard rod – in essence, not dissimilar to a C-type.

Jaguar wire wheels on the Hansgen Special

The only major non-Jaguar item attached to the chassis was the steering rack from an MG TD, judged to be lighter and more sensitive, along with a set of Borrani wire wheels.

Made from eight-gauge chrome-moly tubing, the frame and the handmade, lightweight aluminium body were inspired by both the all-American, flag-waving Cunninghams and the C-type.

By his own admission, Hansgen wanted his Special to echo the shape of the elusive Jaguar, though the distinctive positioning of the headlights inboard of the wings, within the grille opening, was inspired by the Healey Silverstone, an example of which was owned by his chum, Randy Pearsall.

Hot cams were among the upgrades to the Hansgen Special’s Jaguar ‘six’

Another unusual feature of the body was a result of the desire to install a 50-gallon fuel tank for longer races.

Mounted behind the driver, it led to the spare wheel protruding above the line of the shapely tail.

The exhaust system was routed within the sill and covered by a neat, louvred alloy panel, with the cockpit topped by a full-width ’screen from a speedboat.

This was mainly for driving to and from circuits, because Hansgen tended to race with an aeroscreen.

The Jaguar XK120 silhouette is still discernible underneath the Hansgen Special’s lightweight body

Inside, the dials from Quicksilver were set into a minimal dash.

It’s debatable whether the aesthetics of the finished car worked, but with a coat of white paint, courtesy of Hansgen Snr’s shop painter, Jimmy Brown, the roadster weighed in at just 2100lb, some 600lb lighter than the XK120.

Thankfully, Hansgen’s reputation had been growing and friends, such as Don McNought (XK120 coupé), had willingly lent him cars to race while he built the Special.

He gained experience and honed his craft with these outings, even pitting himself against some of the world’s best at Sebring, and he soon grew accustomed to visiting the podium.

The Hansgen Special’s modified Jaguar unit revs to 6300rpm

It took most of the year to complete the Special, and Walt always reckoned he could have bought more than one C-type for the price.

As tested by Road & Track in 1953, the cost of the factory racer was claimed to be $5860.

Nevertheless, the silver XK120 hadn’t died in vain: its componentry, in the form of the newly christened Hansgen Special, netted victory in its first significant outing, at the airport track of Cumberland, Maryland, in May ’53.

Locked in an intense battle for 32 laps, Walt’s adversary, JL Negley in a Chrysler-powered Allard, finally made a mistake and gifted him the win.

The Hansgen Special comes together in Walt’s father’s workshop (left); in the paddock © Hansgen family archive

The year would be Walt’s busiest to date on track, nearly all behind the wheel of the white Special.

After that initial victory came races in Brooklyn and then Connecticut at Thompson Raceway, where he finished second behind Masten Gregory in his freshly acquired replacement C-type (his first having burnt to the ground in qualifying for the former event).

Yet it was the next outing, on 19 September, that cemented Walt and his Special’s reputation: the sixth annual Watkins Glen Grand Prix.

Run on a shortened, 4.6-mile road course, thereby avoiding the town’s main drag where tragedy the previous year had claimed the life of a young spectator and injured several others, the circuit was no less challenging.

This Jaguar-based Special at Cumberland, with Walt Hansgen at the wheel © Hansgen family archive

Walt got a good start and led a trio of Allards, which all dropped out one by one in his wake, bar local George Harris.

With three laps to go, Hansgen felt the Jaguar ‘six’ hesitate and suspected the Special to be running out of fuel.

Switching tanks distracted him, and in the process Harris sneaked by.

Still unsure of the issue, Hansgen switched tanks yet again and it was only on the last lap – the 22nd – that he became convinced he didn’t have a problem, other than the Allard.

This Hansgen Special is 600lb lighter than the Jaguar XK120 on which it’s based

They swapped places five times on that final tour, with Walt finally getting the better of his opponent on the last corner and taking the chequered flag by just two car lengths.

In the space of three years, he’d gone from witnessing his first race at the Glen to winning there in a car of his own design.

The season wasn’t quite over, and a month later he found himself in Albany, Georgia, contesting an international, FIA-sanctioned sports car race at Turner Air Force Base.

It was a rude awakening.

The Hansgen Special’s small aeroscreen was for racing

The 53-car field was made up of the sport’s finest drivers and machines, and, despite Walt’s desire to compete at the very highest level, it was soon apparent his gallant Special couldn’t hold a candle to a Ferrari 340 Mexico or Cunningham C-5R – clocked at 155 and 156mph respectively down the main straight.

The Special posted just 128mph, 20mph shy of the C-types.

It was a harsh reality check, and only Hansgen’s tenacity enabled him to finish the 250-mile race 10th and third in class.

He needed a faster car and, obsessed almost to the point of addiction, he remortgaged his home and bought Gregory’s deep-blue C-type.

The Hansgen Special on Bicester Heritage’s test track

By way of nothing more than a promise and a handshake, the Special found a new home with Paul Timmins, Walt’s friend and fellow racer.

He painted the wings dark blue and, more often than not, ran it with the full ’screen.

He was always there or thereabouts through 1954, and often made the podium, but he was never in danger of winning a race outright.

His perseverance did, however, win the admiration of his contemporaries, because the Special’s tricky handling was previously judged to only have been tamed by its creator.

The Hansgen Special’s side-exit exhaust pipes are cooled by a louvred alloy panel

Tragically, in March 1955 – and before he could conclude the car’s purchase – Timmins was killed in a road accident in west Pennsylvania in his MG TD.

For the following 11 years the Special served as a weekend road car for its next keeper, George Sterner.

He then sold it to a JD Iglehart who, apart from painting it blue, would contest the odd hillclimb when it wasn’t on display in the Watkins Glen museum.

He kept the car until 1983 when it was bought by Bob Millstein, proprietor of Briarcliff Classic & Imported Car Service, who had seen it run in period and was determined to preserve it as Walt raced.

The spare wheel sits proud of the Hansgen Special’s tail

A keen competitor, Bob contested more than 150 events without incident with the back-to-white roadster, most happily at Lime Rock and the car’s spiritual home, the Glen.

It was another 31 years before the Special found a new keeper in leading US Jaguar expert Terry Larson.

Conscious of the car’s importance, four years ago Terry contacted Jaguar specialist Pendine Historic Cars to see if it could find a suitable custodian.

Swiss-based collector Dr Christian Jenny, a regular visitor to the Bicester Heritage-based firm, was enthralled by the roadster and, though not an active competitor, took on the Hansgen with the aim of bringing it to Europe for an appearance at the Goodwood Revival.

‘Compared to the Jaguar C-type the Hansgen Special feels less refined, though it is far from a junkyard bitsa like some contemporaries’

Despite decades of racing in the US, a stage such as the Freddie March Memorial Trophy – and more stringent FIA regulations – demanded another level of preparation.

Thankfully, the team included David Brazell, a first-rate engineer, highly sympathetic restorer and fan of all things 1950s Jaguar.

For him, working on a car as significant as this was an honour.

Complying with the European rules was not without its challenges, foremost being adding an original four-speed Moss gearbox.

The Jaguar-based Hansgen Special took 14 months to build

Another change involved fitting a Salisbury limited-slip diff, as used by competition Jags of the period, in place of the locked rear with which it arrived from the USA.

But as the team got deeper into the project, it found that reducing the amount of slip helped the handling.

“The expectation is that the car will perform somewhere between an XK and a C-type, and that’s exactly what it does,” says David.

“It’s softer and sits higher than other cars on the grid.”

Two fuel-filler caps lead to the 50-gallon tank

“The big frontal area doesn’t aid straight-line speed,” he continues, “but it handles well, changes direction predictably and, with the slipper, it’s not so inclined to be steered from the rear.

“A nice all-round sports-racer, in which you can charge around Goodwood for 50 minutes before driving to the pub.”

Compared to the C-type, the Hansgen feels less refined, though it is far from a junkyard bitsa like some US Specials of its day.

For a homebuilt, it is remarkably sophisticated, but the all-round quality of the factory car surpasses it in every relevant area.

Room for two in the Hansgen Special racer

Both weigh around the same yet, whether it’s unconscious bias due to the car’s styling, the ‘C’ feels more lithe and nimble.

It probably doesn’t help that you sit high and more exposed in the Special, with the steering wheel at a much flatter angle.

Mechanically they are more or less identical, but, again because of your proximity to the ground, the C-type feels quicker and inspires more confidence through the corners.

For the two-driver Goodwood Nine Hours re-enactment at the 2023 Revival, the Special was piloted by seasoned hands Peter Hardman and Andy Middlehurst.

Rusty Hansgen is reunited with his father’s creation (left); Peter Hardman pushes the Special through the chicane at the 2023 Goodwood Revival

The team was joined in the paddock by two distinguished visitors who had flown in from Texas for the occasion: Walt’s son, Rusty, and grandson, Ashley.

“I was too young to see the Special race,” Rusty recalls. “The first car I really remember was the C-type.

“My sister Beverly and I would fight over who got to ride as passenger on the way to the track.

“I did see the Special when Bob raced it, and he even let me have a go at Lime Rock.”

The Special came about as a result of Walt Hansgen’s dogged determination

A thrilling day ended with the sun going down as the roadster came home 16th.

“It was great to see it run,” says David, “and Peter set a 1 min 37 secs lap – slightly faster than one of the more original C-types.

“But the highlight was definitely having Rusty and his son there.”

For a team so thoroughly embedded in the history of the car and its creator, it was the perfect end to an epic and emotional journey.

Images: James Mann

Thanks to: Pendine

Walt Hansgen’s journey to the top

The Hansgen Special worked on several levels for Walt.

It gave him a vehicle with which to truly compete, and to showcase his obvious ability behind the wheel of a competitive car.

This latter factor would be important in the development of his career because, by the mid-’50s, wealthy American owners were looking to the likes of Walt to pedal their entries in the fast-growing arena of sports-car racing.

Within barely a year of moving the car on to Paul Timmins, he was piloting numerous front-running entries and on the launchpad to a stellar decade of international racing.

Hansgen’s big break came in early ’56 when, after driving a factory Corvette at Sebring to a class win with John Fitch, he embarked on his debut professional partnership, racing a customer Jaguar D-type for a firm called Auto Engineering.

In his first encounter with the trio of factory-spec Ds campaigned by Briggs Cunningham’s team, he saw them all off with a less-developed version of the same car.

The US team’s patron predictably wooed Walt into driving his white-and-blue entries for the rest of the equipe’s existence.

The association would lead to Hansgen not only becoming the team’s lead driver, but it would also settle his financial worries.

To get around him being seen as a ‘paid’ driver by the SCCA, Cunningham bankrolled a Jaguar dealership and fuel station for Hansgen in New Jersey, further establishing his association with the marque.

Walt’s loyalty to the American sportsman and the British manufacturer led to him campaigning not only D-types, but also Lister-Jaguars and the last of the factory line, E2A.

He even raced Mk1 and Mk2 saloons, netting victories at Sebring, Silverstone and Riverside.

By the time of Walt’s tragic death in a 7-litre Ford GT40 MkII at a rain-soaked Le Mans on the first day of testing in ’66, he had contested events in just about every type of car: Formula Junior, F1, Indy, Can-Am, NASCAR, sports cars – the variety and number were limitless.

His wife Bea, although not a fan of his chosen career, meticulously kept scrapbooks, totalling in excess of 900 pages, of all his racing exploits.

By the time of that fateful day in France, behind the wheel he’d gone from being an aggressive rough diamond to the consummate professional.

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