BF Exclusive: 1966 Jaguar Mark II 3.8
- Seller: Vintage Motors
- Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Mileage: 63,335 Shown
- Chassis #: J66P223778BW
- Title Status: Clean
- Engine: 3.8-liter 6-cylinder
- Transmission: Auto
At the same time that Cadillac was introducing its mega-tailfin design, a company in Coventry, England, known for sporty coupes and sleek sedans (saloons), came out with its second version of the Mark Series: the Jaguar Mark II. This 1966 Jaguar Mark II has been with the same owner for the last four decades and stored inside for the last 15 years. It’s now listed here as a Barn Finds Exclusive!
Jaguar offered the Mark II, or Mark 2, from 1959 through 1967, and they were generally known by their 2.4-liter, 3.4-liter, and 3.8-liter engine sizes. The 3.4-liter and 2.4-liter models continued for a time, with the 3.4-liter model going away in the fall of 1968 and the 2.4-liter model in the late spring of 1969. They were known as the 240 and 340. They would be discontinued in 1969 as the XJ6 grabbed their spot on the Jaguar hierarchy.
The Mark II had bigger windows than the Mark I and other features such as a new grille, a wider rear track, and more. Rust is always something to watch out for and this car appears rock solid from the photos that the seller has uploaded. This car was owned by a single owner for 40 years and stored in a “dry garage”, presumably the one seen here with one of my dream cars, a Jaguar XK-120!
They say that it was last on the road 15 years ago and it will need the usual work to make sure it’s roadworthy, and then the cosmetic work begins. The wood and leather interiors aren’t inexpensive to restore, but these seats look very nice, so that’s a good thing. The wood, not so much, but hopefully it just needs to be spruced up a bit rather than being rebuilt. You can see the automatic indicator on the top of the steering and a lack of a third pedal, so this car has the optional Borg-Warner three-speed automatic rather than a manual.
Here’s the 3.8-liter DOHC inline-six with 220 horsepower and 240 lb-ft of torque when new. Sending power to the rear wheels through that automatic transmission, these were nice driver cars, and the automatics, while typically not as valuable, tended to last longer. Originally a California car, this one is now located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and can be found here as a Barn Finds Exclusive!
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Comments
Get rid of all the unreliable British wiring and drive line and drop in a decent Chevy 350 and call it done! Had one just like this one (’59) back
in ’70. I wanted to restore it but repair
parts were non existent in the Midwest where I grew up, so the only thing I could do was to have the car
rewired to American spec and drop a
350/Turbo 350 into it. Cost me about
$400 for the rewire and a like amount
for the engine and tranny which I bought from our local junkyard. They
were low mileage units from a T boned Impala sedan. I later had everything else redone by the time I sold it to a local doctor for $4K. Mine had the steel sunroof that you could
crank open on nice days. It also had
Athe picnic basket in the trunk with all
that fine china and silverware in it too.
These cars were very unreliable and
unsafe by US standards as they often
burned to the ground due to wiring
issues or flash fires caused by those
leaking side draft carbs they came with. Said it before, and I’ll say it again. The British, French, and Italians couldn’t build a safe reliable car if their lives depended on it.
Enough havering! The most unreliable part of any car is the nut behind the wheel.
Whose car industry was “Unsafe At Any Speed?” about, incidentally…?
I have had several Jags, including 2 XKE’s through the years. I have found them to be easy to work on and very fun to drive. I have not had any problems with the electricals, including with the 63 Mark 2, 4 speed that I currently own. This one would look very nice when restored.
914 Shifter is right! A big “BOO!!” to those simplistic and chauvinistic comments of Kenneth Carney. Classic Jags are wonderful cars when they are not abused and serviced in a timely manner per the owner’s manual…and by a competent owner or mechanic trained to work on such cars…not some American V-8 mechanic who wouldn’t know an S.U. carb from a fruit-fly!
This is one I would kinda like to Tinker with to see if I can get it running again, I would be afraid of the availability of parts because on things like this even private sellers of parts think they are gold and charge accordingly. Not sure how to deal with the dual carb situation. Might try my luck at taking a aluminum block and making a adapter so its a single 4 barrel carb. The last adapter I built put a ford pinto carb on A Datsun b210
That’s why I swapped in a Chevy. The
Midwest is NOT a place to own a foreign car– unless you owned a VW,
Toyota, or Datsun. Those guys got it
right. My Uncle bought a new Mazda
Rotary wagon that spent more time in
the shop than it did in his driveway. It got so bad that he traded it with just
5K miles on it for a new ’72 Dodge
Tradesman conversion van. And to
this day, Uncle Bud will NEVER buy a
foreign car again.
And if I were into boring, retro engineered, poorly put together cars, I wouldn’t either.
914 Shifter is right! A big “BOO!!” to those simplistic and chauvinistic comments of Kenneth Carney. Classic Jags are wonderful cars when they are not abused and serviced in a timely manner per the owner’s manual…and by a competent owner or mechanic trained to work on such cars…not some American V-8 mechanic who wouldn’t know an S.U. carb from a fruit-fly!
Correct, you have to know what you are doing. Many do not understand electronics. I will not slander an American V8 they have there place but not in a classic ‘Cat’.
Once again we have clown #1 slamming fine British craftsmanship and then (typically over-sensitive British) clown #2 gets his feelings hurt and slams all American mechanics, which is just as ridiculous as clown #1.
Rather amusing, as it happens almost every time, and both clowns are equally laughable and sad.
CV Panther: where did Clown #2 “slam all American mechanics”? It is a fact that very few traditional American V-8 mechanics were also proficient in tuning/repairing cars from across the Atlantic. There were rare exceptions, but in general your average American GM, Ford or Chrysler mechanic knew nothing about synchronizing/repairing SU carbs, Salisbury differentials, Girling brakes/suspensions, Lucas electrical components, Smiths gauges, etc. To point out that one kind of mechanic is not very qualified to service vehicles he/she has not been trained on, is NOT to INSULT anyone. If I were to say that CV Panther knows nothing about performing brain surgery, that is not a put-down, but only a simple fact–as long as that is the case. What is “laughable and sad” is someone who just wants to attack/put someone down…without having a case. The late conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, used to call this “triangulation”, where someone wants to seem like the adult in the room, while looking down paternalistically on both parties in a dispute of some sort, as though they were truculent children.
Clown #2
n
Looks like a solid project. These are great cars. I had a ‘62, but a previous owner had swapped in a Ford 302. I had a spare Jag 3.8 in the garage, and had dreams of restoring it to its former glory. Alas, my wife didn’t like it, so I eventually sold it as it was. I’d love to own another, but only one with an original drivetrain – like this one!