When Jaguar Won A NASCAR Race And Never Competed Again
This article was originally created to be in The Daily DownForce
16 different manufacturers have won a NASCAR Cup Series race from 1949 to present day 2026. From the household names of Ford, Chevy and Toyota, to the now defunct manufacturers of Mercury, AMC and Studebaker, all those manufacturers had won multiple races throughout their existence in NASCAR’s premier series.
While Chevrolet is nearing 900 wins in the Cup Series, there’s a manufacturer that only took the checkered flag in first place once: Jaguar.
The Jaguar emblem has been synonymous with racing mainly in Europe with iconic wins at the 24 Hours of Lemans to Jaguar Racing’s existence in Formula One coming about in 2000, and lasting five seasons until the end of 2004.
While in Formula One, using a Cosworth engine, the Jaguar team would enter in 85 Grand Prixs and see just two podium finishes of 3rd place. Although a fairly short-lived tenure in Formula One, Jaguar still today remains as a fan favorite team amongst fans who got to see the Ford-owned team compete on the grid.
Long before Jaguar would enter into the open wheel series that is Formula One, the manufacturer originally got its tires wet in the United States.
When NASCAR had its inaugural season of what was then known as the Strictly Stock Series in 1949, teams and drivers were using solely American-made cars. Who would’ve thought that just a half decade later NASCAR would see their race lineups nearly split 50/50 in American and Foreign cars.
The first NASCAR race that featured foreign cars competing was the International 200 on June 21st, 1953, at Langhorne Speedway, a 1-mile dirt oval. The race, a 200-lapper, saw Dick Rathman start second and lead all 200 laps, lapping the entire field en route to the win.
The headline didn’t focus fully on Rathman’s dominating victory, but instead on a critical point in NASCAR history that is now widely forgotten.
A total of 10 foreign manufacturer cars competed in the International 200 out of what was a 38-car field. The likes of Aston Martin, Volkswagon, Porsche and Jaguar competed against Hudsons, Dodgess and Oldsmobiles. Out of those four foreign manufacturers that broke ground for NASCAR history on this dirt oval in Middletown Township, Pennsylvania, only one would go on to win a race before NASCAR changed their rules entirely.
Just a week shy of the one-year anniversary of its NASCAR debut, Jaguar would compete at the Linden, New Jersey, Airport Course. This race was technically the official road course in NASCAR Cup Series history. The Airport was actively used when auto racing came in 1954. Originally constructed in 1942 to test flight Wildcat fighter planes used in the Pacific Theatre, the wartime-purposed airport would be repurposed for one race weekend for NASCAR.
Out of the 43 car lineup for Linden, 21 of them would be foreign. Jaguar would make up the bulk of the list with 13, MG would have 5 entries, with Porsche, Austin-Healey and Morgan all having one car representing their manufacturer each.
American horsepower would win qualifying to many surprises, with Buck Baker’s Oldsmobile 88 winning pole. Behind Baker was Herb Thomas’ Hudson. Eric Peterson would get Jaguar on the second row with a third place qualifying effort.
What made qualifying interesting is that many people thought that the American cars would struggle on a road course due to their bigger and bulkier size compared to the likes of Jaguar and Porsche.
The race would be a 50-lapper around the 2-mile course. Once the green flag waved Buck Baker would showcase what winning pole really does for a driver’s advantage. While the 42 cars behind him were jossling for position, Baker was leading the first laps of the day, along with Herb Thomas, who would both lead 11 laps each.
Al Keller would then take the lead near the mid-race point and never look back at second. The Jaguar driver started 7th and made his way up to the front, leading the final 28 laps when it was all said and done. Keller dominated once out front, with him adjusting quickly to the 6-turn road course, lapping all running cars except second-place finisher Joe Eubanks.
Keller was piloting a Jaguar XK120 when he took victory lane in New Jersey.
Overall, the Jaguar XK120 was the world’s fastest production car in the world at the time of Al Keller’s win. A top speed that could exceed 120 mph made it anything but a dark horse victory. The XK20 was a mix between domestic and foreign parts that comprised a near 50/50 ratio.
Four Jaguars would make up the top-10 finishing order, as all the other foreign cars finished 13th or worse with the majority outside the top-20.
Nonetheless, NASCAR decided to quickly take a different direction in how foreign cars are allowed to compete in the sport. The sport would tighten their definitions around eligible stock cars greatly, which effectively shut out any foreign-buit cars. This is to ensure the series remained focused on American-manufactured cars.
Several years later in 1958 at a road course in Riverside, California, four foreign cars competed, finding a way around the rulebook: two Citroens, and a single Renault and Goliath competed. That would mark the final time until Toyota came in 2007 that a foreign manufacturer would race in the series.
When it comes to Keller, he was still fresh off of this first-career win when he notched his second-career win at Linden. Keller had previously won at Oglethorpe Speedway earlier in the season driving a Hudson.
The win at Linden came in a somewhat odd way for Keller. This was the 13th and final race he competed in for the 1954 season, with all of the previous 12 starts coming in a Hudson owned by George Miller. Keller had not raced a Jaguar or for owner Paul Whiteman prior to this race, which was just the 25th of his Cup career. This would also be the only NASCAR Cup race held at Linden as well, making Jaguar and Keller the ‘forever winner’ at the track.’
Keller sat out the entire 1955 season to race in USAC and Formula One, before coming back for the final 4 races of his Cup Series career in 1956.
For Jaguar, they have not competed in the Cup Series since the 1950s and likely never will again – but who knows, especially with Dodge looking like it’ll be back this decade anything seems possible now. Nonetheless, Jaguar will always be in the record books as a NASCAR Cup Series winner.
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