When it comes to a vintage Jaguar, what’s the common lament about the vehicle in question – is it the styling? No, almost never, as cars like the E-Type were among some of the prettiest ever made. Is it the performance? Not that either, because when it’s running well, the performance is still quite good. Is it exclusivity? Hardly that either, as E-Types aren’t cheap when buying a good one. It’s the reliability factor, the tendency of the engines to need more upkeep than they’re worth. That’s why this 302-powered 1969 E-Type 2+2 may be one of the smartest buys there is, as it checks all of the boxes including the typically troublesome ones. Find it here on eBay with bids to just over $18K and no reserve.
The seller calls it a “restomod” but I wouldn’t go quite that far. A restomod is usually more of a departure from purely stock condition, and while this specimen certainly deviates from the factory by a fair amount, it’s not been overly modified, either. The seller does point out, however, that the conception of this E-Type was not due to an engine fire or being low on the necessary funds to restore it back to original condition; no, the original builder was supposedly a Jaguar fanatic who owned multiple restored cars that retained their original factory configurations, but wanted to build his own version of what Carroll Shelby was doing with Ford, or what Sunbeam had created with the Tiger.
The E-Type was converted to Ford V8 power in the 1970s, long before the small block swap became commonplace among Jaguar owners who couldn’t stomach the cost of rebuilding the original V12. The 302 was fitted with custom headers, an Offenhauser intake, four barrel carb, and a custom camshaft that the seller contends helped propel the Jaguar to delivering over 300 horsepower. The engine is bolted to a standard C4 automatic transmissions, making this one of the more reliable drivetrain configurations you can hope to find in a vintage car. Throw in the fact that the body looks beautiful and otherwise stock and you have the perfect recipe for a sleeper.
The Jaguar has been in storage for some time, having been used regularly until 1988 when it was parked and hasn’t been started since. It’s lived in various storage arrangements but no attempt to drive it was made during that time. The seller reports that the engine rotates freely, and that the interior was restored at some point in the past – and it still looks quite handsome today. The electrical components still show signs of life, but the starter will need to be replaced, along with the tires that still hold air but are long past their expiration date. This is a seriously cool project and one that shouldn’t be too hard to bring back to life – and will be an absolute hoot to drive without nearly as much fear of a breakdown as a standard XKE.
I always liked the quirky 2+2 and I consider this to be the original clown shoe to the BMW. When I read of the V8 conversion I initially 💩 the idea since Jag has a lovely 3.8 liter six. However I would take a V8 over the V12 due to it s added complexity. Also the owners story helped sway my decision. Either way the e type Jag goes down as one of the most beautiful automotive designs.
Shame about the slushbox, but otherwise nicely done conversion before it was in to so!
This car would have never had a v12 in 69.
Boss 302?
Swaps like this weren’t uncommon, when these were at the low end of the depreciation curve engine issues could easily have ended with a one way trip to a wrecking yard. Even through the late-80’s it want uncommon to find desirable makes and models in the local Pick Your Part with straight bodies, good paint and nice interiors, that never would have wound up there in any state that salted their roads. Deep down you knew they were there due to mechanical failure.
The one good thing about this car is that is that the swap was performed on a 2+2, which was an honest attempt by Jaguar to ruin one of the best car designs ever.
Steve R
Jeff: Ad doesn’t say that engine is a Boss. The Boss 302’s are special engines & very different from stock 302’s, close to 400 hp with cleveland heads & all different HD rotating parts, only in production cars for 2 years & worth 10K just for the engine.
The subtitle in the ebay ad does say BOSS 302. This car does not have a Boss 302 engine, it is just a regular Ford 289/302 small block.
There was really little wrong with the 6 or the V12 but the problem was the Lucas electricals.Lord Lucas,the father of darkness.One day while working at a local Eurocar repair shop the phone rang and the caller wanted to know if we knew anything about Lucas electrical systems in English cars and I told him we were veterans of 100,000 blown fuses.One joke was that British car wires carried smoke and not current and when the smoke escaped the whole thing shut down.Shining times and good fun but never again.
Totally agree. My first car was a Triumph Spitfire, and I have owned two TR 7 roadsters since then. Call me a masochist, but when they are running correctly, there is nothing quite like a British roadster. Do you know why the British like there beer closer to room temperature?…….Because they have Lucas refrigerators.
Jaguar’s use of the unreliable Lucas electrical systems plus the use of a positive ground system frustrated a lot of dedicated Jag owners. But look at the upside, if the Jag were an airplane they would have been falling out of the sky faster that could’ve been counted!
Looks like a regular 302 and not a boss. Still nice
The valve cover design seems to say this is a standard 302 with aftermarket covers. On a Boss the PCV valve sat more upright. On this engine it’s more slanted.
It looks like a nice example of the 2+2 body style.
But can remember even as a 12 yr old kid what the hell Jaguar was thinking with the camel hump rear on these? By 1969 was sort of hoping that Jag would update or redesign the e type. A beautiful car.
When the 240Z came out it made me think that it was the car Jag should have built. (History seems to say we are better off that Datsun did the design, and construction)
Looks like a fun car for someone though.
Steve R. hit the nail on the head. If you want to destroy the value of an E-Type. then pick the one with the least value, the 2 + 2 with slushbox. Actually, the new owner has nothing to lose – why not go whole-hog and make a real hot rod out of it: A supercharged big block with monster fender flares, wheels and tires to match, etc, etc. I like the idea.
Was it the English or the Italian cars that would only run on Thursdays and rusted into the ground the other six days?I think I read that in the Automobile Quarterly years ago..
I’d have gone for a SBC. Finally the rear distributor makes sense.
Rob Roller… No, that’s just the sort of urban myth that propagates nicely on the internet… and your comment proves just how that works…
a bit like the Lucas electric reputation. certainly there’s some truth behind it, like many myths or stereotypes but at this point in time 90% myth amplified by people repeating it in the internet.
As for this E-type. You can understand how it ended up with the SBF swap back in the day when these cars were just used cars with little value and probably too expensive for the owner to fix the original engine..
but other than being too poor to afford to fix it, I can’t see how anyone would choose to replace the original XK motor with the Ford motor. Jaguar won Le Mans three times in a row with this motor. You often hear people marveling at the legendary “one horse power per cubic inch” achieved by some very limited edition muscle car motors like the 426 Hemi or fuel injected Corvettes… but the 1969 Jaguar came with a 4.2L ( 258 cubic inch ) motor making 265bhp as standard (ok, slightly less in the US market car).
but fast forward to today’s classic car market. even taking into account that the 2+2 body style and auto transmission make this one of the least valuable e-type models, you can pretty much guarantee that this one with the Ford engine swap is worth probably 1/3, maybe 1/2 what it would be with the original Jaguar motor?
Classic Car Fan
If your comment is directed at the Automobile Quarterly remark it is an obvious farce or a grey joke and never intended to be serious.The Lucas electricals were later replaced by Bosch and worked well.Nearly 70 years ago I had my first automobile experience and that was helping to install an intake manifold on a real classic,It was a Duesenberg,J487 and the only long wheelbase “J” with a LeBaron dual cowl phaeton body. The two men that owned that car got a franchise later to sell imported,mostly English cars
and that lasted for several years and later I was able to acquire machine shop skills and they have served us well and to a small degree they still do.
Nice story, but what does hat have to do with the Jag in question? As far as Lucas electrics go, they indeed were poor to unacceptable. Another thing with the Jags were their Yeager gauges. The gas gauge regularly packed it in shortly after being installed.
I don’t remember seeing Yeager guages Gerard, do you not mean Jaeger? I stand to be corrected as maybe Jaguar fitted Yeager guages for the American market only.
The term “Boss” has been bastardized too much when describing Ford Small block engines. The engine in this Jag is a Windsor, it is not a Boss 302 which had “Cleveland” heads and a special four bolt main block with screw in freeze plugs. Kind of like every Chevy small block that has been installed in a modified vehicle is from a Corvette.
I had an old book on engine swaps, and this was one of them. They recommended the small block Ford because it is dimensionally smaller than a SBC and fits with much less modifications.
Sorry Gerard but Jaguars never had Yeager gages – always smiths except for the ammeter which was Lucas.
As for Lucas electrics, they were solid up until 68 or so when the bean counters took over and started producing everything out of plastic. Prior to that most problems were created by mechanics with little understanding ‘fixing’ things.
Thanx Tin Box for the correction apropos gauges. Where did I get the Yeager gauges from? I could have sworn that´s what was used. O well, learn something everyday!
The 2+ 2 was kind of the ugly duckling from the brood. If this is a Boss and it doesn’t look like it, I have tremendous respect for that engine very good combination of engineering and thought went into that engine!
If this car ever had a V12 I sure don’t know and even if it didn’t I would personally never replace it with any other engine, any thoughts of long term profits just went down the drain!
The problem with Lucas is that they overly-complicate even the simplest tasks. My Squire SS-100 has Lucas Bi-Flex 9″headlamps 9″ (retrofitted)that were salvaged form a mid 30’s Rolls Royce/Alvis/Bentley etc
They are absolutely Beautiful. Here’s how Lucas engineered them: To achieve high beam, low beam headlights, rather than putting in a second bulb (our a 2nd “element” within the bulb) they chose this route:
The entire reflector (the parabola behind the bulb) tilts upward or downward! To accomplish this task, they have a pair of electromagnets that move the inside of the reflector up and down.
BRILLIANT, BUT COMPLICATED!!!
I couldn’t figure them out, and finally gave up…The entire restoration was being held up, waiting for the headlights! I wanted to fit halogen bulbs anyway… which, by my calculations, would give me so much light that high beams would be totally un-necessary. as it turns out,. I CAN BLISTER THE PAINT ON THE CAR IN FRONT OF ME!!!
Ok! so I “pussied out in figuring them out… Maybe the electromagnetic “servos” were bad? Both of them??? Positive Ground??? I’m sure that there is a specialist in the UK that would be happy to rebuild them for 5 grand or so.
So finally, I said F’it!!!
They look great and they work perfectly!
I just have to hope that somewiseass Concours judge doesn’t ask me to show him the high beams!!!
( and yet another great story to tell when I’m at car shows and people ask about the headlights!!!)
MarkO
Google: Lucas Bi Flex
My 1934 Austin 10/4 also had the same type of headlights as your Squire and they worked perfectly, but their only benefit while driving at night was that other drivers could see me coming!
MarkO I am in complete agreement with your solution you have much more lighting available and you simplified what sounds like a ridiculously complicated factory answer! Well done in my book!
I just bid on it. Doubt I’ll get it but if I do I’m cutting the roof off and making it a four seater Jag. Gonna tic a lot of people off but, hey someone else modified it first.
Item location:
Stockton, California
Houston, we have a problem! The V-12 engine was not introduced in the E Type series until 1971, so either this car is a 1971 or later 2+2, or it was originally a 3.8 or 4.2 L 6 cylinder DOHC engine. The six cylinder engines were quite reliable if factory maintenance recommendations were followed. I could see swapping out the Borg Warner slush box for a Jaguar manual set up but never a 302 Ford small block / C4 auto combo. Additionally I’d be very skeptical of the claim of 300 HP from a 302 engine without seeing dyno results. It could be true, but then who knows. There are swaps that could make performance sense such as an later model LS swap with a Tremec manual T5 or T6 speed transmission behind it. I just can’t quite get on board or excited about a Ford 302 swap into a vintage Jaguar. If Carol Shelby was making this swap he would have built a real Boss 302 and a manual Tranny behind it!
Jags with 350’s have never impressed me. This horror show is no different. You want a V-8? Go buy a boy racer.
Bad pictures, make it hard to tell if real Boss engine or not. They don’t look like Cleveland heads, but that could be the aftermarket valve covers and the bad pics making it hard to see.
Cool idea…
One joke about the Jaguar was”I bought a new one and when I got home I started restoring it”.I don’t think they were That bad but we had them in our shop a lot and seldom for the same problems.One I remember well was a 6 cylinder one that lost a lot of oil pressure idling hot.I took main bearing caps off one at a time and the center main had only 1/2 of the bearing installed when the engine was built.I replaced the whole bearing and after reassembly and new oil it was started and driven and held good oil pressure from then on.
The fact it had that big leak under pressure where the missing bearing half said a lot for the oil pump and the 7 main bearings in a 6 cylinder said a lot for the design.
Had a buddy back in the day with an XKE. We’d be out rollin around, if he saw train tracks he’d hang a u turn. I’m like whaddya doing? If I go over those tracks, I’m going to have to retune the carbs and lord knows what else.
16 quarts of oil to be changed every 3000 miles which is why maintenance was skipped by many owners who viewed them as transportation on a good day. Yes oil was cheaper then, but so were wages.
That’s definitely not a Boss. Boss 302/Cleveland valve covers have eight bolts in a different layout vs typical Windsors.
Putting V8 in the old girl would be a win/win for driveability and handling with the weight back towards the center of the vehicle but a Jag enthusiast would probably have a stroke at such blasphemy!
The Lucas jokes get to be a bit tiring. The only grain of truth is that during the early ’70s there were several Lucas strikes and the quality of the product deteriorated for a while, but in any English car of the ’50s and ’60s the Lucas electricals are alright. As for the Jaguar overhead twin cam six with haemispherical combustion chambers, it is a good quality powerplant that never gives trouble if serviced competently by someone who knows what he or she is doing, at the intervals mentioned in the owner’s manual. Aston Martin essentially copied that engine, and NOT looking after them leads to EXPENSIVE repairs. I own a ’69 E Type, although not the 2+2, but rather the roadster. I look after it and it is quite reliable and there is nothing else I would want to drive during the summer. It has no electrical problems, no rust, and doesn’t leak oil…because I know what I am doing when it comes to maintenance.
To understand the rationale of dropping a V8 into a Jag, you simply had to drive one. Six cylinder E-types, as beautiful as they are, understeer like pigs and the V12’s are even worse. SBC’s, due to their dimensions, required cutting and modifying the cross member that runs alongside the cylinder heads and the 302 did not. New front springs were required after the conversion as the powertrain weighed considerably less, which completely changed the way the car handles. More responsive steering, better acceleration and WAY better, more neutral handling. Just night and day a better car! The 347 in my ’33 makes 453 reliable, easy driving-though rowdy horsepower, so 300-375 is quite easy.
Definately not a BOSS 302 engine! Sexy lines though…
After several E-Jag and other Jag restos I definitively believe the owners were the weak link not Lucas or mechanicals. Exotic from day one the cars were bought and driven like citizen cars by owners that forvthe most part never maintained or drove them as intended by design. Reputation? Bad rap ? IMHO.
How could someone put a 302 engine in it. Terrible.
How? I owned the previous model, an XK 150S, mechanically similar. I am not an auto mechanic by education or experience. I did not live within easy driving or towing distance of a repair shop that knew how to fix Jag engines (or how to do lots of other things peculiar to British cars). If I had had someone put a common US engine in it – at the time a Chrysler Corp slant six was suggested since it would fit easily – I might still have the car, it would be a beautiful, and, most importantly it would run and be reliable, and the 3.8 Jag 6 would still be in the barn in case someone, someday, wanted to reinstall it and trailer the car to events behind my trusty 16 year old Toyota V8.
Ended:
May 02, 2021 , 8:00PM
Winning bid:
US $25,299.00
[ 47 bids ]
V8 Conversions were not uncommon in the 70s. As several pointed out, once the engine needed work, it was hard to find someone to fix it and to find parts. IIRC a common warning about those conversions was the front rails needed to be reinforced.