Although this car has the appearance of a 40’s American car from the front, it’s actually an innovative (for the time) British Jowett Javelin featuring a water-cooled flat four! It’s listed for sale here on eBay.co.uk and is located in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, UK. The opening bid is set at 3,200 pounds or $4,218 at today’s exchange rate.
Javelins were produced from 1947 to 1953 and were quite advanced for their time, with independent front suspension, hydraulic brakes (first on the front, then on all four corners) and a fairly aerodynamic body. This one obviously will benefit from a full restoration after having been stored for 26 years. The car is being sold due to ill health of the seller.
So what do you think, Barn Finds readers? What cars do you see in the front end? Here’s a link to a buyer’s guide that has a picture of a good one. And as you can tell from this Great Motoring Disasters article, the Javelin suffered from a lack of development, especially its transmission.
There is some rust, and naturally patch panels for the car don’t exist with less than 24,000 being produced. You’ll have to do some fabrication for sure.
You can see why some British enthusiasts generically call gauges “clocks” from this picture. Could those miles be genuine? Who knows — but are you going to throw this Javelin or not?
Hmm, I thought it was an IH K model pickup,,,export model. (RHD)
IH pickup was my first lookalike candidate as well.
These are really handsome and sophisticated cars for their day. Cool find; too bad it’s on the wrong side of the pond.
Sorta looks like a 40 Chev.
Why is the clock/speedometer in MPH?
So you can see what your speed is. HAAAAAARRRRR!!!
Was wondering the same, Dean.
It’s called the English system!
Great Britain went over to metrics in the 1960s.
I’ assumed because it was built for export, but the car is in the UK. I have noticed a lot of British use mph, so maybe the kilometer thing isnt a hard rule there?
Britain has always used Miles instead of Kilometers. Still that way today.
Because it’s a British car.
Steering wheel’s on the wrong side. (just kidding – but really, I don’t understand Americans who want to buy a car with right hand drive steering).
If you live in a country that drives on the left hand side of the road then you buy a car with right hand steering. I guess you have never lived in a country where they drive on the LH side. I have for all of my life but have you ever tried to buy an old Mustang or Caddy with LHD? Not possible until recently. You soon get used to it. It’s not difficult.
Do you mean RHD?You could not buy Mustangs or Caddies here except with LHD until fairly recently.Caddies were sold here pre war with RHD tho’.
Our TC is rhd. That way I can scare the daylights out of my wife during a ‘pass’. Whenever that might be…
Jowetts were built in Bradford.The postwar models were the Javelin saloon,the Jupiter 2 seater & the Bradford trucks.Production stopped because the company that supplied their bodies was taken over by Austin,who pulled the plug.Their pre war slogan was ‘If a Jowett had spurs,it could climb trees’.
Ford bought the company that made the body’s and demanded they bought more, which as a hand built car couldn’t compete
https://ukma.org.uk/road-signage/speed-limits/
The British..always gotta be different
@Dean. You had better believe it. Here all gasoline is sold in LITRES but distances are given in MILES. So first you have to convert litres to gallons in order to work out what MPG your vehicle is obtaining. So stupid.
Dean – Ken is right.It is of course an Imperial gallon,not a US gallon!
we have to sell liquids in litres since we joined the EEC except milk and beer which are still sold in pints, don’t ask, as for working out MPG just simple maths.
Sooooo…. if you use nautical miles per hour, and buy your fuel in ‘Empirical’ gallons, and drive /fly on the left side of the road/airway… To further confuse the issue; helicopter and boat drivers sit on the right, so they should buy fuel by the Nautical Empirical gallon, right?
Anyway, if this is the case, why aren’t the navigation lights green on the left in the UK.?
Still like the car though.
IMPERIAL gallon!
The last US carmaker to drop RHD was Pierce Arrow,in1922 btw.
‘EMPIRICAL’ gallon. For The Queen’s Empire.. Freddy Mercury and all that.. All of my gas jugs have “Imp.gallons” melted into the sides. That’s just in case you have to put gas into your Hillman Imp soze youze don’ts over fill it. Jes’ some non sequitur, Luke.
It is”Imperial Gallons”.
Aw fer. Y’alls ever watch Monty Python? I have a flying buddy (former student) that hails from Newbashinggoatshire (what it sounds like to me), England. I picked up a bit of his Brit humor. He’d tell a joke then three days later I’d start cracking up, finally getting it.
I quit.
The Jowett Javelin and Jupiter were quite advanced for their day, with well-sorted suspension systems and reasonable power from the opposed-pushrod four under the hood/bonnet.
Early examples had major issues with crankshaft failures, but this was corrected over time.
Luke’s comments about the company losing its body panel subcontractor is spot on, as the company couldn’t find an alternative manufacturer and lacked the resources to bring production in-house.
There’s a strong following for Jowett vehicles, globally, and parts are still available, in case anyone wants to tackle this particular Javelin.
The four-cylinder Jowetts were sold new in the USA. Before moving to NZ, I owned Jupiter E1SAL266, originally purchased as a factory delivery lot of four cars by none other than Red Skelton.
My car was his personal vehicle that I scored from a guy named Walker Edmiston. Some of you SoCal guys of an advanced age might remember who he is…
The red car in the photo was my Jupiter, and the one on the right was two serial numbers older and owned by my next-door neighbour, the late Ted Miller, America;s Mr Jowett. Ted’s car, he thought, was the one Skelton bought for his head scriptwriter. Who would have thought that two of the four cars originally purchased by the legendary comedian would have ended up in adjacent driveways…
…Truth be told, it was Ted who set up the deal for me, as Edmiston wanted to buy a Dniper motorcycle and his lovely wife told him he had to sell something first. I paid the princely sum of $500 for the car and had it running and drivable 48 hours after getting it home.
I too, had a Jupiter, red with black leather interior, Bought it in about 1976, but never had it driveable as back then it was almost impossible in America to source spare parts. I sold it to a local guy in Maryland, often wonder what happened to it, as I never saw it again.
Where to start!?!? After some personal turmoil, Ted handed all the spares over to me. He passed shortly after. In 2013, a Brit Jowett owner and I drove my Javelin from Los Angeles to N. Carolina on the Ted Miller Memorial Tour to visit his sister and brother-in-law, who have the first LHD Jupiter.
In 2016, the Javelin drove from Los Angeles to the Arctic Circle in Alaska and the only trouble involved inner tubes, although we did do the recommended annual service twice in the 7000+ mile trip.
Jupiter 266 is alive and well in So. Cal. Ted’s Javelin is in the same condition as you last saw it, in the Tomb of Jowett Jim.
There is a restored Javelin in Prince George, Canada that is on the market. We stayed with the owners on the Circle trip and it is a pretty nice running car. Not sure where it is advertised, but I have the details.
The Maryland car that is mentioned below by Bill M. could be a car restored in the late 90s and is currently in family hands of the restorer. Also a nice car that has been on the cover of a book on Jupiters.
Tried to upload a photo in Alaska, but no joy.
Thanks for sharing your story, Obviouslunatic. I’m glad Ted’s Jowett spares went into safe, appreciative hands.
Ted and his wife, Shannon, were great friends and neighbours; we had a lot of good times together. We spent my last weekend in SoCal, before I moved to NZ, partying in the infield at Riverside Raceway, along with a bunch of our buddies.
I remember when his sister got together with her husband, as well as the sale of the LHD Joop.
Last time I saw the Millers was around 1993, during a visit home. Shannon said that she had just scrapped her ’65 Corvair coupe that she got as a high school graduation gift in 1970 – seems that nobody wanted to buy a tired, 110HP/Powerglide ‘Vair in those days – and if she’d known I was visiting SoCal, she would have given it to me!
I heard the news of Ted’s passing from a mutual friend at the Auckland (NZ) Concours, not long after he left us. Needless to say, the news was more than just upsetting.
RIP, old friend. Every time I hear a mandolin play, I always think of your music wafting over the fence…
Sorry Luke, you are quite correct, my error. All Mustangs and Caddy’s were LHD until the new Mustang arrived. My friend owned a ’65 that had been converted to RHD but he couldn’t give it away as it was not considered to be a PROPER Mustang!
Ken,
I have a friend in England who owned a 1959 Chevrolet with RHD, factory built for the South African market, And no one in the UK wanted it because it was a RHD American car!
In the late 70s had a 1959 Chevy Impala in the UK. It was sold new there, was RHD and was built in Canada for export. Probably came through the GM dealer in London called Lendrum & Hartman. Many mid to late 50s American cars were designed for simply conversions hence the Impala’s mirrored dash lay-out and the dual dash cowls of the 55 and 56 Chevy. 70s Jeep Wagoneers were also designed that way with the gauge panel and glove box door interchangeable.
Finally! Pictures of a garage that make mine look organized!
Strange that Austin cut out the body supplier. Austin (BMC) also hired away the ingenious designer of these cars: Gerald Palmer, who went on to design the beautiful MG Z-series Magnette saloons of 1953-58. His designs also included the Wolseley 444, and the larger Wolseley 6/90 – incorporating the same six-cylinder engine that later found it’s way into the Big Austin Healeys.
As for American antecedents for the Jowett, I totally agree – that grill looks like it came straight off a ’40 Chevy. But the rest of the car looks to me like a miniaturized ’39 Dodge.
@Christopher. UK may have gone over to the metric system in the 60’s but they didn’t go far enough. We still work in feet and inches, pints, quarts etc. plus millilitres, ounces, grams pounds, kilos etc. etc. It’s enough to drive one nuts. As for the road signs, well, a previous comment suggested that we should convert all of our road signs from miles to kilometres. Can you imagine the costs involved in doing that, although I fully agree with the suggestion.