The Cozzi Jaguar Special: The Inspired Homegrown That’s Enjoying a Prosperous Life

Growing up in San Francisco, Dan Cozzi’s need for speed began shortly after birth, in September of 1936. His first concoction was a 2×6-inch wooden beam over steel wheels that he built to coast down hills. Next came a 12-speed, knobby-tired off-road bike. After disassembling a motor scooter engine, Dan’s motto became “work on what you have and make it better.” All of it was a precursor to one of the most interesting, most impressive custom Homegrowns we’ve ever seen. Cozzi called it his “Jaguar Special.”

[Welcome to Homegrown—a limited series about homebuilt cars and the ingenuity of their visionary creators. Do you know a car and builder that might fit the bill? Send us an email to tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.]

We’ve drawn the following recollections from documents Cozzi wrote while studying mechanical engineering in college. (They have been edited for clarity.)

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One day I was totally enthralled by a fellow working on a hot rod in his parent’s driveway. Fortunately, I was invited to enjoy a closer look by William Walter Nielsen, commencing a 50-year friendship. Nielsen’s mentoring resulted in the construction of my Jaguar Special.

I became hooked on hot rods when he gave me a ride in his channeled ‘29 Ford Model A. My parents were soon shocked by my burning desire to build my own car. Naturally they said no but incessant pestering resulted in an opportunity to construct an engine to power my fantasy machine. The Mercury flathead V-8 a wrecker dropped in our driveway came coated with dirt and grease. After a year in our basement, it was ready to power the next owner’s immaculate T-bucket ’32 Ford. Bored, ported and polished, and topped with twin carburetors, it ran like a top for years.

My first after-school gas station job paid a buck an hour. In 1950, I found Saturday work sweeping the floor, mopping up oil, and holding parts being welded onto a revolutionary double-tube-chassis sprint car. That very machine won a Northern California championship in ‘51.

Helping add a supercharger to Nielsen’s 1948 MG TC led to the purchase of my first car, a metallic green MG TC, which I bought in 1953 when I was 16. Instead of remedying that machine’s engineering faults, my mentor suggested stepping up from MGs to Jaguar parts that were lighter, faster, and more race-ready. His brilliant notion was combining a Jag XK’s DOHC six-cylinder engine, four-speed transmission, and suspension equipment with a tubular-steel chassis topped by a custom sports-car body.

By then I’d graduated from high school and was studying mechanical engineering at Heald College in San Francisco. Asked for his blessing, my father agreed to bankroll the effort and allow construction in our basement with two restrictions:  I would resume studies after a 90-day break and never drive my home-built racer in competition. Realizing this was the chance of a lifetime, I didn’t hesitate agreeing to his conditions.

Our basement had a drill press and bench grinder. My uncle loaned us welding equipment and a table for shaping steel. After finding a wrecked 1953 Jaguar 120M, we stripped the parts we’d need while final exams loomed at school. Then I informed my Dean I’d be taking a quarter off to commence a 12-hours-per-day frenzy in our home shop.

One challenge was a floor surface sloped for drainage. This made it difficult to build an accurate frame out of steel tubing and plate materials. A second issue was straightening the donor Jag’s bent rear axle. But after three months of effort, I rolled my chassis out of the basement on its own tires.

Once back to work on my engineering studies, the task was finding a shop to fabricate aluminum body panels using the scale drawings Bill had created. The first contractor claimed he would finish the work in three months. When that didn’t pan out, we discovered the brilliant metal fabricator Jack Hagemann in San Leandro. Weekly prodding by Bill and I yielded finished body panels from Hagemann in nine months.

After I sanded and phosphatized our bodywork, a painter applied zinc chromate primer then a coat of red lacquer. By this point my creation had been granted license plates as a 1955 Jaguar Special. Plumbing, wiring, and final assembly were completed in the Spring of 1956. (Cozzi was 19.) When we fired the engine for the first time, there was a problem with oil pressure caused by interference between the oil filter and my ladder frame. After that was fixed, I drove the Special around my neighborhood without body panels. The next problem was the drum brakes. While stopping was fine, the pedal felt spongy. A new single-action master cylinder and fresh linings remedied that issue.

While driving around the San Francisco peninsula, my concoction ran great. Then the idea cropped up of competing in a nearby SCCA road race. In hot pursuit of more power, we fitted the Jag inline-six with four SU sidedraft carburetors. 

The first pro driver we tapped didn’t pan out so we approached Nadeau Bourgeault, whose smooth style felt great to me. We upgraded the car with a limited-slip 4.27:1 differential and Firestone racing tires. After raising the tire pressure for our first race in Stockton, California, Bourgeault reported that the Cozzi Jaguar Special “worked like a million bucks.”

We finished eighth-overall in our debut, third in Class C behind Louis Brero in his ex-factory Jaguar D-Type and Jack Graham in an Aston Martin DB3S powered by a Chevy V-8. During the two months before the next race, we improved venting for the transmission and differential to prevent lubricant loss, added a cold intake air box, quickened response with shorter steering arms, and reduced the front anti-roll bar’s diameter to diminish understeer. On a chassis dynamometer, the Jaguar Special registered 125 horsepower at its rear wheels. Then at Cotati, California’s airfield, we finished sixth overall and won Class C. Carroll Shelby won that event in a Maserati 300S.

Three months later, I was hired as an associate research engineer at Lockheed Aircraft. For the next two years, I only drove my car on Sunday afternoons. I showed my Jaguar Special at one concours event and clocked it on the Half Moon Bay drag strip at 90 mph in 18.7 seconds in the quarter-mile.

In 1959, Fiat awarded me a scholarship to study automotive engineering at Italy’s Turin Polytechnic, during which time I enjoyed the opportunity to roam Fiat’s vast Mirafiori manufacturing complex. With my career gaining momentum, it was time to cash out my car. It brought only $2500—half of my father’s investment. But the real value was that my car construction experience made me feel totally fulfilled.

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The all-in cost of the Cozzi Jaguar Special was roughly equivalent to the price of a ‘57 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. ($5100 translates to $55,300 in 2025.) That’s small spinach compared to what this car sold for in 2008 to the current owner, Rick Rome, a retired engineer of Dallas, Texas.

In 1959, after purchasing this machine from the Cozzis for the aforementioned $2500, Dave Smith of Salinas, California, kept the car for three decades. Most of that time, it sat out-of-doors under a tarp. Cozzi moved to Italy in 1963 to work on various racing projects including one Formula 1 effort. Now retired, he resides near Livorno on Italy’s west coast.

Next in line was David Hinton, the British-born owner of Predator Performance located in Largo, Florida. While he prefers not divulging the exact number of dollars spent at auction in 1990, Hinton admits to an investment “north of $250,000.” Hinton’s ministering returned the Cozzi Jag to full glory. In 2007, he allowed your author to drive the car at Road Atlanta for an Automobile Magazine article.

Sliding under the steering wheel into the aircraft bucket seat required contortions. The rumbly engine played endearing rock and roll. The three control pedals swung through long arcs while the shifter snapped authoritatively through its crisp H-pattern. While the steering was heavy, Cozzi’s chassis carried by Dunlop racing tires became close friends with the track’s asphalt. The only issue I faced was a tendency for my left shoe to wedge itself between the brake pedal and the firewall, a problem solved by driving sock-footed.

Hinton sold the car at auction in 2008 for an undisclosed sum to Bill Jacobs, a Chicago-area car collector. Due to unforeseen circumstances, he held onto the Cozzi Special only six months.

The next owner, Hagerty member Rick Rome, acknowledges investing over $300,000 in this precious artwork: “I instantly fell in love with the history, engineering, and aesthetics of the Cozzi Jag and quickly convinced Bill Jacobs to sell it to me. This car is my favorite and a blast to drive. Others love it too as I’ve turned down offers topping $450,000!

“My wife, son, and I love events such as Arizona’s Copperstate 1000 and the Colorado Grand (both sponsored by Hagerty). So far we enjoyed more than a dozen such events without experiencing any serious mechanical issue in our Cozzi Jag.”

We can summarize this Homegrown’s seven decades of joy with simple math: current value divided by construction cost. The answer—90X—is a return on investment seldom matched in real estate or the stock market. 

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Vital Stats (from Road & Track, May 1957)

Wheelbase: 96.0 in

Track, f/r: 49.0/51.0 in

Curb weight: 2350 lbs

Distribution, f/r: 51/49 %

Engine:  3.4-liter DOHC inline-six

Est. output: 180 hp

0-60 mph: 6.9 sec

Top speed: 130 mph