HAMPTON COURT 2025
EX-MASTEN GREGORY JAGUAR C-TYPE RESTORED BY CKL STARS AT CONCOURS
This year’s Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court featured a C-type that we restored and have looked after for over a decade - declaring it:
’perhaps the most genuine example of one of Britain’s
definitive racing cars: the Jaguar C-type’
This particular C-type, chassis XKC-015, ‘remains in highly original condition and boasts a fascinating history’. The sports car was owned in period by Masten Gregory, the Le Mans-winning American racing car driver, described by none other than Caroll Shelby as “the fastest American ever”.
XKC-015 was despatched from the Jaguar factory at Browns Lane on 14th October, 1952, finished in ‘Old English White’ - the hue it still wears to this day, with suede green interior trim. It was delivered to Charles Hornburg, Jaguar’s West Coast dealer in Beverly Hills. Hornburg was responsible for an influx of C-types into the US; he had convinced Jaguar boss William Lyons that competing in America would increase sales, so it became a specific target market for the firm.
After purchasing it from Hornburg in Beverly Hills, the first owner of XKC-015 took it racing only once, before selling it early in 1953 to Masten Gregory, then an up-and-coming young racing driver. Known as the ‘Kansas City Flash’ the youthful and bespectacled Gregory was both seriously talented, and seriously wealthy - the heir to an insurance company fortune. He bought the C-type at the age of twenty-three, just one year after starting his racing career. They formed quite the partnership, and he drove the car to victory at an event in Stillwater, Oklahoma, followed by a win at the Guardsman Trophy race at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
After this success on track, Gregory loaned XKC-015 to the magazine Road & Track, who’d tried and failed to source one to test via official channels. As the publication recalled: “For some reason Type Cs are hard to get and all attempts to line one up for our rather strenuous test routine failed, that is, until just before the Golden Gate Road Races when we received a phone call from Masten Gregory. Mr. Gregory, it seems, had heard of our dilemma and suggested that we test his car – provided, of course, that it survived the coming race event. To make a long story short, the car not only survived, it won the race and was duly returned to Los Angeles for us to test.”
Masten’s short-course ratio benefited his car’s 0-60-mph performance of 6.6 seconds and quarter-mile average of 15.25 seconds. Its estimated top speed of 141 mph compared with the C-Type Le Mans cars’ 150+ when fitted with the 3.31 ratio.
After being put through its paces by the road test team, and immortalised in the magazine, the C-type returned to competition. Gregory wound up having a serious crash in it during practice for a race in New York; he spun and the car caught on fire. Jumping out just in time he was able to return to the pits, where he promptly sold the car on the spot, and bought another C-type, XKC-022.
XKC-015 on display at Hampton Court on Friday - photo: Simon Aldridge @octanesimon
Great success would follow for Gregory over the course of the late 1950s and 1960s. He eventually ascended to Formula 1, where he secured a podium finish in his very first World Championship Grand Prix start – a first by an American. He would go on to race 43 times in Formula One, before switching to sports cars in 1965. He promptly won the Le Mans 24 Hours that same year, and later became one of just a handful of drivers to race in the Triple Crown: competing in the 24 hours of Le Mans, Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix.
Gregory was a hugely respected figure in motorsport; he was the hero of Formula 1 legend and two-time World Champion, Jim Clark, and Caroll Shelby said he was “the fastest American ever to race a Grand Prix car”. He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2013.
Following its starring appearance at Hampton Court, the car will be racing at Goodwood Revival this coming weekend, driven by the Swiss duo of its owner and Marcel Fässler, three times winner of Le Mans. Since our restoration it has also been featured at Villa D’Este.
It will be one of several cars that we are supporting at Goodwood this year. If you see us please come and say hello - we look forward to seeing you there.
Photos: Tom Shaxson, Tim Scott, Robin Halliday, Charlie Brenninkmeijer courtesy Concours of Elegance and the owner
Last four photos: Simon Aldridge @octanesimon
