One-Off Jaguar XK150 Foxbat Is A Shooting Brake With Morris Minor DNA

Ask the average person what a Foxbat is, and you might get references to some kind of airplane. Ask airplane nerds that question and they'll tell you all about the Russian MiG-25 Foxbat. Big and powerful, it's still the fastest jet fighter to enter service, though it's also a bit crude. Much the same could be said about this odd Jaguar that also carries the Foxbat name. We'll talk more about that name in a bit.

First, let's look at this interesting Jaguar XK150 shooting brake. It's a 1960 model coming towards the end of XK150 production and first things first – Jaguar never made such a thing. This long-roof is a one-off project that removes the backside of the coupe and replaces it with the boxy wooden frame from a Morris Minor Traveller. We suspect some Jag purists might find that combination rather unflattering, especially on a car as pretty as the XK150 but as we can see in the above video from furiousdriving on YouTube, it's actually not a bad pairing.

The video offers no information on how or why these two machines were fused, but the final product doesn't look too bad. Some of the seams are a bit worse for wear, and that back seat doesn't look remotely comfortable. The back is supported by a single piece of wood, meaning it should fold down if you want to load up the back of your classic XK150 with some cargo. With literally no legroom for back seat passengers we aren't sure why the seat is even there, but hey, perhaps someone can stretch out across the seat and enjoy the ride from a sideways point of view.

Under the hood is a stock 3.8-liter inline-six that fires right up and seems to run well. A four-speed manual handles the power and judging from a short test drive in the video, the mechanical components seem to work well. And there's certainly no denying the clatter of that classic Jag I6 sounds superb.

The car was reportedly built by a noted Jaguar enthusiast named Geoffrey Stevens from 1975 through 1977, using a rusty XK150 as the donor car. It should be noted that, at the time, the aforementioned MiG-25 Foxbat was something of an enigma to NATO and western forces. Envisioned as a super-fighter with extreme speed and maneuverability, little was known about its actual capability until a Soviet pilot defected to Japan with a MiG-25 in 1976 – right in the middle of this Jaguar / Morris Minor project. That's a rather interesting coincidence.

The XK150 Foxbat is currently for sale in the UK with an asking price of £44,995, which converts to nearly $64,000 in US currency.