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Last night I watched Inspector Morris on Public TV, getting his beloved Red Jaguar rammed into, tears were litterly flowing out of his eyes. Does this Police Officer have a cause to cry? What model of Jaguar is it and how good is it??????
Jaguars spend so much time on the lifts at garages he was probably upset as it just left the lift.
I have always loved the style but aware of the mechanical.
That was Inspector Morse, played by John Thaw ... in one of his most popular roles and the series was a British classic which has brought us many hours of enjoyment.
The Mk II's weren't a great car to begin with, but they certainly had their style and manners, with a well done leather interior and lots of woodwork.
The car in the series was a 2.4 liter powered, the smallest of the motors used in this car. The 2.4 was the entry level motor, mostly sized to Brit road power needs and fuel economy with a nod to the taxman about taxable HP. Most of them that I've seen in the USA were 3.8 liter powered, essentially the same motor as used in the early XKE's. They had legs, but weren't a particularly quick car of their day ... which is why Jag increased the displacement to 4.2 liters for later XKE's.
Mechanically, this series of car was as much of part of legendary Jaguar maintenance and repair as any of the 1950's-1960's (and later) Jaguars. Interesting to drive when (and if) it was running properly, they needed a lot of hours in the shop for the time they did spend on the road.
I had an opportunity to deliver one of the 3.8's from CA to CO back in the late 1960's, and had a less than happy time stranded in Flagstaff AZ waiting for replacement fuel pumps when they both died in a Thanksgiving snowstorm. The Lucas ignition and electrical components were especially low quality; the car had about 20,000 miles total on it at the time, and I remember opening the hood by the side of the road and trying to figure out why the car had died that night ... cranking over the car gave me quite the light show at all the spark plug wires and distributor cap. Initially, I thought that the poor ignition components were causing the car to die on the road, so scrounged up some good Packard wire and "sparky wire ends" from a local motorcycle shop that night and replaced the defective wiring. Only to find out that there was no fuel getting to the carbs .... tried cleaning the points in the fuel pumps, but still, no dice. Switch quality was poor, too ... which made wiper and heater blower operation intermittent in a time when they were really needed in the storm. The low heater output made you want something a bit better, too.
The good news about these cars was that they could help make my boat payments back then ....
While the Inspector Morse series is long gone ... as is John Thaw, who passed away at age 54 IIRC ... the car from the series is still used as a promotional car in England for BBC shows.
Last edited by sunsprit; 10-02-2011 at 11:08 AM..
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