Classified of the Day – 1969 Jaguar Mk2

Are you itching to live out your fantasies of being the bad guy from The Sweeney? If you do, this classic Jaguar is very much the car for you. Though before we go on, we should qualify this by saying this is going to be a project, but by the looks of it, one very much worth doing.

The Mk1 Jaguar is now a largely forgotten old thing. It wasn’t a bad car, per se, it was just a case of it being overshadowed by the brilliance of the Mk2. What Jaguar did was take the Mk1 – an already good car – and improve on it. At the time, it didn’t seem possible – the Mk1 was pretty much perfect as far as most were concerned. But jaguar went ahead anyway, and stunned the naysayers with its follow-up act.

The suspension was reworked, raising the roll centre of the car. This combined with the wider rear track made for class-topping handling. Disc brakes were fitted all round. As standard. In 1959 the windows were made larger by 18% in total, making the cabin lighter and visibility better, and the body was restyled to be smooth and flowing. It had it all, and the adverts proudly let the world know. Grace… Space… Pace… read the advert penned by Sir William Lyons. And it wasn’t wrong. The Jaguar had all three in spades.

As for the pace, that came from a range of inline-six engines. The car you’re looking at here has the ‘baby’ engine, with a capacity of 2,483cc. But don’t go thinking baby is slow. It has, or had when it was new, 120bhp. And while most Mk2 Jaguars were fitted with an automatic transmission, this one has a manual. Perfect for outrunning the law.

It is a project though. The advert is light on details, but it seems that this is a survivor car rather than an older restoration. It’s certainly honest though, and that’s a good thing when buying a classic. You could go for a full restoration. If it were our money, however, we’d get it road legal again and run it with all that hard-earned patina in place.