In America, a saloon may be a place to get a cold lager, but in England, it’s the term for a four-door sedan automobile like this fine example of a 1961 Jaguar Mark IX. Reminiscent of the Mark II driven by television detective Inspector Morse, though larger, the Mark IX was available from 1958-1961. The Mark IX sports a 3.8-liter engine, as opposed to the 3.4 in the Inspector’s car (though note that the seller erroneously lists the engine here as a 3.7-litre). The Mark IX has a more boxy and perhaps less attractive grille than its smaller sibling, but it still represents stylish English motoring. The Jag in question is in the Reno area and is available here on craigslist with the price not specified but the current owner saying: “Make reasonable offer. I’m not letting it go for nothing.” Thanks to TJ for this tantalizing tip.
A broken-off spark plug in 1985 stalled work on this car, and it has been sitting since. Its owner has decided that he’s not going to get around to attending to it given that he has other projects. Makes you wonder: Is this the least-loved of his project candidates, or the most difficult to get up to driver status? If you decide to take this job on, you’ll receive a boot (actually back seat) full of resto parts, including ignition parts, taillight lenses, and one new hubcap. Slightly less happy is the news that the car comes with a new water pump and hose kit, as well as a radiator (pictured), which leads the astute Inspector (Morse) to inquire whether cooling problems lurk in the car’s past, as is common with Jaguars.
So why take this on? Because driving it could make you the English Lord you were meant to be. Or just because you’d have the most interesting four-door car of anyone you know. Happily, the registration has been kept current on this car, freeing you from a common barn-find worry.
So what should you pay? Online valuation tools suggest just past $20K for a car in fair condition. If you could bring it up to excellent #2 condition, you’d have a ride worth more than three times that. But, to be frank, that would be daft. This car may or may not have original paint, but the finish has beautiful patina and the interior is super-clean. The only sensible thing to do here would be to get the engine running, properly seal the rear window, and putt around town looking for cold cases to solve.
Growing up, we had a neighbor who bought one of these, a 1960 – he traded in a ‘58 Fury for it, which I thought was a big mistake! The Jag had the nicest interior I had ever seen, I was quite impressed with that, but the car seemed to be in the shop a lot. He later traded in the Jag for a new ‘63 Wildcat, of which I heartily approved, not that anybody cared about my opinion, mind you.
Well all these years later I think your opinion was spot on!! Nothing against a Jaguar mind you but a Fury and a Wildcat. Yowza!
I own one of these. Mine has only 42K miles on it. It’s one of my favorite cars. Values are on the rise but only for 2+ cars. This one has good bones but much to be done. Given the oil on the front of the engine and the sellers admission on the water pump, engine will likely need to be pulled. Head may need work due to overtemp. Valve cover missing some retainer nuts, hopefully hasn’t been over tightened. Trunk has aftermarket ungodly fuel cell in place of two stock fuel tanks on fenders. These tanks are unobtainable, so the only think one can do is weld in the holes and put in the best sealer you can find.
The interior pictures are too blurry to determine the condition of the leather. If it is bad, that’s an easy $5K. The woodwork ( all 50 pieces, don’t ask me why I know) looks salvageable but all needs to be removed and refinished.
If the underside is clean and the leather in good condition, I’d offer $10K and be willing to pay up to $15K. 2+ condition cars are now $50K, and this one has a potentially long journey to get there but at least possible. Begs for an in person examination.
This is a nice car.
If you ever need parts, there is a plethora of them west of Ogden, Utah
Al, I’m not familiar. What is the name of the place you mentioned?
Ogden is north of Salt Lake City, Utah about 2 hours north
Hi Al, I am in need of some parts – do you have a business name? Cheers, Seth
Sorry, I don’t live there anymore.
The boat fuel tank also raises some questions…
But these are lovely to drive. I have one, and a close friend has a 1 owner MkVII.
A boot is the trunk in England, not the back seat
This series begins with MKVII, aimed at wealthy owners, often chauffeur driven in UK. This was well before the Mk2 (or earlier Mk1) Jag, which were a size and social class lower.
Strange thing with Jaguar was that they always underpriced their cars (from XK120 to XJ12). In engineering and presentation, the Lyons era Jags would give little away to Rolls or Aston but came in at less than half the price, which probably compromised quality and reliablity. A mistake Mercedes never made….
A nice MKIX just failed at $20000 +/- on BaT, so not easy to sell. Agree with JohnfromSC that very good examples should top $50000. But buying a car with needs could hurt.
The Mk 7, 8, & 9 were cars for Managing Directors. They were very nice cars.
To offer a correction – the Morse Mk II was a 2.4, pretty much a wreck fished out of a scrap yard and barely kept running through the series. After the show someone spent $100k to restore it.
If you keep in mind that, once running well, it is still a toy, you would be OK. My ’60 Jag XK 150 S ran one week out of four, never dared to drive it anywhere I had to be on time (like to work), always where and when AAA could be called to tow me back the to the local “foreign car repair” guys, and mostly in the daytime in case the headlights went out again. In three years only had to be towed once, but limped home many times with some not quite fatal flaw- no brakes (parking brake, acutally functioned well as an “emergency brake”), no lights, no windshield wipers, broken part in front suspension but drivable, shift likage fallen apart, the list goes on. But when it ran, it RAN. Rust was becoming a big problem at the end. I know, I should have kept it, but that was 50 years ago, more or less.
Well all these years later I think your opinion was spot on!! Nothing against a Jaguar mind you but a Fury and a Wildcat. Yowza!
Masochists who own Jags come in 2 versions, 1) those who love to suffer, making every excuse imaginable while insisting they have a great car and 2) those who can´t wait to get rid of the source of their misery, sort of like owners of older wooden boats.
These are beautiful driving cars! Having restored a Mk9 and and a same vintage Bentley S2, for the same client, to the same level, the Bentley was a truck in comparison to the Jag. The interiors are stunning, all the wood, purple glow of the dash lights, tool trays fitted to the doors etc.
sort this mechanically and you’d never be sorry.
I put alot of miles on a ’59. It didn’t overheat, but adding an electric fan was cheap insurance.
Well, I grew up with MkVII’s, although my dad did purchase a MKIX for a short period. He did all the work on them himself. They are gorgeous machines. I know a lady who is selling her fathers MKIX. He was the only owner. Purchased it new in England, had it shipped to NY and then drove it across the country to SF. It runs and seems to be in very nice condition. At $24K I’d love to get it, but I simply do not have the garage space.
This is a North American version, and has the fairly rare front bench seat, which came with a center locking cabinet between the picnic tables, along with a rear seat clock.
If the broken spark plug is only broken at the ceramic top section, this should not be a difficult job. However if the plugs were not coated with anti-seize material and the plugs have become “glued” to the head, it could mean the head has to come off. With steel head studs and the aluminum head, if there is corrosion between the 2 different metals, this can be a fairly large job.
This car dates to a time before automobile companies had a real understanding of what can happen between steel and aluminum after decades of being near each other. And Jaguar Cars, Ltd also never envisioned a Jaguar engine’s head NOT being pulled for “decoking” on a regular basis.
We had a MKIX like this car come into the shop with a leaking head gasket, and the car had been sitting like that for 25 or more years. The steel head studs were all frozen in place due to white powder from the aluminum corroding [electrolytic action at it’s finest!], and even after converting a set of spark plugs to have a grease fitting in each, and filling all 6 cylinders with high pressure grease, that head refused to budge, so the owner elected to replace it with a running engine out of a rusty MKIX we sourced for him.