Larry Watson painted Jaguar XK

 

PEARL WHITE AND PINK ROADSTER

 

In the late 1950’s and 1960’s Larry Watson was known for his amazing paint jobs on Custom Cars, in the 1970’s more and more Sports Car owners wanted Larry to paint their cars in some amazing colors.



Today its almost unthinkable that a car like this Jaguar XK would be painted anything but a factory stock color. And the looks of this wild pearl white and candy fuchsia pearl will probably make some of the die-hard Sports Car enthusiast grinch or worse. But back in the late 1960’s and 1970’s it was the thing to do to make sure you and your car got noticed on the streets.

As is the case with a lot of  material from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection this set of photos also came with no information about the owner or anything else. We know that Larry did a number of Jaguars in special colors, and this is just one of them. Larry had a few of these photos on his Museum walls’s but they were framed with no name attached. Perhaps somebody will see this article and recognize the car from back in the 1970’s. If so, please let us know.


[box_light]This article shows a selection of photos of Jaguar XK Custom painted by Larry Watson. All these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Or on the Custom Car Photo Archive. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.[/box_light]

Nice photo of the Jaguar in front of a nice house which perhaps belonged to the owner of the Jaguar, or perhaps it was chosen for the photo background just because it looked so good.
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The Jaguar was not really customized as some other Sports Cars were back in the day. But the owner did add some Buick Skylark wire wheels and thin line white wall tires to the car. And they do look very good. But what really sets off this car is of course Larry’s amazing bold paint job in gleaming pearl white on the lower parts and candy fuchsia over that on the top portion of the car. The interior was all red, I guess it came that way from the factory, but it looks good with the colors Larry choose for this Jaguar.

Seeing European Sports Cars like this Larry Watson painted Jaguar XK on the streets must have been a spectacular sight. Elegant lines, enhanced with amazing paint jobs, I really wish Sports Car owners these days would be willing to do that again.






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Some of the photos of this Jaguar were taken in front of Larry’s 5576 Melrose Hollywood shop in the early 1970’s. This shop was located across the street of the Paramount Studios. Larry painted a lot of Exotic and European Sports Cars during this time. More than likely the location had a lot to do with it. Many movie star or movie production people would see the wild painted Cars sitting in front of Larry’s shop when they would drive to work.











The building in the background is the Paramount Studios and it is still there today, and so is the shop were Larry worked at the time. We can see large posters for the original mission impossible tv show which ran from ’66-’73. 
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