Offered here is a 1963 Jaguar Mark II on Craigslist near Portland, Oregon that looks ready to cruise down the road tomorrow, as long as you’re not too much of a stickler for originality. The owner wants $10,999 or best offer. Thanks for the submission, Curvette!
The car came with Jaguar’s famous 220-horsepower twin-cam XK engine. Now it’s got a Chevrolet-sourced inline six—not exactly a barn burner, as I recall from my bitchin’ red ’62 Chevy Nova convertible with the same motor. This power plant looks snazzy with a chromed valve cover, but the owner is stingy with details. We are told only, “All necessary lights work, recent brake and engine work make this a fun car to cruise around.”
The other main departure from stock on this car is the cloth seats (on the original frames, I think). I believe leather or vinyl (on the budget 2.4-liter version) was the default on these cars. Still, the old armchairs look nice. The Jaguar otherwise looks very together, with shiny black paint (albeit orange peeled), polished wire wheels with wide whites, and a nicely refinished dashboard—which must have been expensive to do.
Chevrolet engine transplants were common in Jaguars, both the Mark II and the E-Type, back in the day. I remember a neighbor with a moldering GM-powered yellow E-Type coupe in the shade of an old oak. I probably could have bought it for pennies. A V-8 swap is more common, but these sixes are plentiful.
The Mark II was built from 1959 to 1967, and was the company’s most successful car up to that point. Production was 83,701. There were 27,848 3-8-liter versions, capable of 125 mph and zero to 50 mph in 6.4 seconds. In addition, there were 2.4- and 3.4-liter iterations. Wire wheels and a four-speed with overdrive were optional on the Mark II.
The Mark II was visually similar to the earlier Mark I, but much improved, with a wider rear track, re-engineered front suspension geometry, four-wheel disc brakes, and a limited-slip differential in 3.8-liter form. If I’m reading the tail badge correctly, this was a 3.8-liter automatic car. It’s still an automatic, the ad says, with a floor shifter. In 1967, the Mark II became the 240 or the 340, with mild styling differences (slimmer bumpers, for example). Leather was now an option; Ambla was standard. The XJ6 was just around the corner.
All that aside, we have a beautiful Mark II in front of us, from the height of production. These cars are notoriously expensive to restore, largely because of the interior refurbishment. This car doesn’t need any immediate work, as far as can be told from the terse writeup. Classic.com puts the 1963 Mark II at $36,302, but you have to dock this car for the incorrect engine and upholstery—even if it works just fine in this configuration. I’d say it’s something of a bargain, even as the values of ‘60s cars point downward.
It would be a lot more fun with a stick….. the Chevy motor certainly is more reliable as a driver!
Nice find…and probably a great little driver for the money.
I’ve always been a fan of these sedans/saloons and now with American power under the hood for reliability this would make someone an excellent entry into the classic British motoring market without the cost normally associated with maintenance.
The way I see it, is this: they domesticated this cat. Jokes aside, I know these Jaguars were great racer cars back in the day and probably made good getaway cars for some crazy criminals. I would drive this and speed past all the yuppie bmw and boys with a huge grin!
Nice car that you can drive and enjoy.
Pretty enough from the outside, with the chrome and white walls. However, this IS an Automatic car. The original console configuration and shift knob appear as the Stick does, but look at the one large pedal underneath, and the chrome “Automatic” on the trunk. Finally, the CL ad does list “automatic.”
Still would be a fun car to drive, though.
I’m not one of those extreme purists, but I just never understood these engine conversions… for the amount of work and dollars on a (well done) conversion one could have a fine original power plant… …and retain the car’s full collector value.
When the engine repair/rebuild has many $$$$ attached to it and you have a perfectly good engine of a different variety sitting there. It just kind of comes together. (This coming from a guy that put a 5.0 Ford in a 265 Volvo wagon and a 320i BMW. ) Plus, some of us just like to be different and enjoy the challenge!
A family sedan, leisure cruiser, without an LS…, but they put an Automatic in it! Sarcastic rage! :-P Hell I love the auto in it. fun evening ice cream getter. It isn’t a Ferrari, stickies! LOL
The body style on the rear just leaves me cold. The front is cool, just like an XJS, front is great looking, but the designer just gave up past the front doors. It’s like Jaguar had 2 different designers. One for the front and one for the rear. Chrome wires and black paint always looks great together! I hope that the transmission isn’t a slip and slide Powerglide!
The Chevy motor “is more reliable” only to an American in the context of not knowing about a Jaguar twin overhead cam engine with hemispherical combustion chambers. If you know how to tune and look after a Jaguar six, it is as reliable and rugged as they come. Only to people who know NOTHING about adjusting and synchronising SU carburettors or servicing such a motor is it “unreliable”. For example, put traditional American1960s Prestone coolant in the rad and eventually you will get electrolysis that will damage both the cooling and then the engine itself, causing it to leak oil. Someone who knew what type of coolant to put in would have no such problems. The Jaguar XK motor is a fine piece of reliable machinery when handled by someone who knows what he or she is doing. They were exotic engines available in cars at relatively bargain prices, so people who didn’t know how to maintain them could afford to buy them. Unlike Ferrari or Aston Martin, Jaguar under Sir William Lyons used to bring the cost of its powerplants down through relative mass production. Those Jaguar sixes were available in race cars, sports cars, saloons/sedans, hearses, ambulances and even lightweight Royal Armed Forces Scorpion tanks.
Absolutely, well said.
The SU carburetors are very simple with fewer parts and they’re easy to synchronize with a Uni Syn or even a piece of hose to ear, listening for air intake. I used the tool with my Triumph and later with a dual carb set up on my 53 Ford.
GONE, and feel to me like it was well bought.
But, I’m no expert at these. I know my old man was looking at XJ6’s with the American V8 transplant back in the day. They were bargains then, and it seems like they still are.
Seems like a good deal. If I were to buy it, I would always be on the lookout for a good deal on a Jaguar 220-horsepower twin-cam engine and trans, w/the idea of someday returning it to original condition. In the meantime, I would just enjoy the car, which would at least sound more like a Jag six than if it had a Chevy V8.
Yeah, I was one of those guys who swapped in a 350 GM V-8 in
one of these after a wire fire took
out everything from the dashboard forward. I got my car
given to me by Carl Pfeister, a family friend who owned a used car lot. He wanted the car gone so as I said, he gave it to me. So
I had a free car, but just how can I
get it running? I mean face it, there weren’t any foreign car parts shops in our town (1972) that would have the parts I’d need
to put everything right again. And even if they did, it would be far more than I was willing to spend
on something like this. Face it folks, the British couldn’t build a
reliable car even if their lives depended on it. If it wasn’t the side draft carbs leaking and causing flash fires, it was the Lucas electrical system (They should’ve been banned in the States) that always shorted out and burned many of these cars
to the ground. With all that being
said, I was reading a copy of Rod
& Custom Magazine and lo and behold, there was an article in it that told you how to put a Chevy
V-8 in a Jaguar. That was it! I called my friend Harry Riddle who told me that he just got a ’70 Impala 4-door sedan that got hit
hard amidships and had less than
20K miles on it. Hot damn I gotta
have it. So I rent a U-Haul, hooked it to my Caddy, went down and picked the motor and
tranny up. We followed the directions given to us in the article, and it wasn’t long before the car was running well enough to drive it to an auto rewiring shop where the Lucas electrics were ripped out and replaced with a DOT approved custom made wiring harness that met US
safety standards. We had to go
to Chicago just to get the metric
tools we needed to get the car ready for the electrician to do his work. While the car was being rewired,
we redid the interior where needed, and stripped and refinished the wood trim with the
help of the wood shop class at my school. Once the car was back together, I took it to C&R auto body in Bloomington where my friend Roger Phelps painted it
a very dignified Nocturne Blue metallic which went nicely with the Cream leather interior and
Dark Blue carpets. Once all the bugs were out of the car, my friends and I would ride around town, flirt with the girls, and generally have a good time. That
didn’t last long though. We were
coming out of a movie theater when we noticed this fella looking at my car. Turns out that
he was a doctor who wanted to know how much I’d take for the Jag. I told him $4K and he didn’t
bat an eye. He took out his check
book and wrote me a check on the spot! He even paid for a taxi
to take us back to my house. He
followed us in his newly acquired
Jaguar so I could give him the title and all the other paperwork
that went with it. I was honest with him when I sold him the car.
He didn’t mind that it had a Chevy
engine in it. In fact, he was glad
that he could drive an old English
car and be able to get parts to keep it running. And when he bought an old Bentley with a blown engine, he called me to see if I could put 454 V-8 into it for him but due to my touring schedule, I couldn’t. But I did send him to a friend of mine that
gave him a fair deal. I saw him
still driving that car in 1986– about a month or two before my wife and I moved to Florida. It’s
nice to know that something you
built give someone so much pleasure.
Hi Ken! When I was going to move to Nevada from Illinois. I needed a pickup so my wife could bring her 2 sheep. (She was a hand spinner and weaver.) I ended up having to “rebuild” the 327 that was in the ’72 C10 with alot of used parts, (I had 3 engines worth of parts to choose from) new cam and lifters, all new bearings and gaskets from Warshashaski ” J.C Whitney for those not grom the Chicago area. Along with cheapie headers and cheapie dual exhaust kit. (I believe the bill was less than $400. I wasn’t really concerned with a long life, as I really only needed it to get me 2,000 miles. The truck also had a Saginaw 4 speed from a Camaro. The truck ended up being pretty quick! AND it got 22 mpg at 55 mph. I sold it to a guy that worked for me and he drove it for awhile, but he was really an automatic transmission guy. So he traded it for a Toyota Pickup. ,About 3 years later I saw the truck hauling the mail up hill towing a 4 horse trailer. I ran into the owner a week or so later and told him that it was my old truck. He asked if I was the one who rebuilt the engine. As it was the best truck he ever had. According to him, he had put 200,000 miles on it hauling horses from Mexico to Washington state. And never got below 15 mpg loaded. He was excited to talk to me about his great truck! About a year later I ran into him again. He was still really happy with the truck as he had put another 100,000 miles on it. And the engine sounded really tired! I saw it parked at a junk yard about 6 months later.
“Face it folks, the British couldn’t build a
reliable car even if their lives depended on it.”
Hmmm… I must live in some alternate universe, as I have several 50+ year old British cars, one of them I’ve owned 45 years myself and they are all running quite well, and have been. Even with those “side draft carbs leaking and causing flash fires”… “the Lucas electrical system (They should’ve been banned in the States) that always shorted out”…
Has repair been required over those years… of course… but no repair I haven’t done to any other nationality car of similar age and miles… including those red, white and blue ‘Murikan ones…
Oh, and they all still have their original drive-trains, side draft carbs and “should be banned” Lucas electrics…
*eye roll*….