Your BMW M3 Comes Thanks to Jaguar — The Carmudgeon Show w Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep. 186

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Hello. Hello. This entire episode shall be conducted with British. In British. In the Queen's English. Because. Because we are the Queen's, a Queen's e-car on the background. No, she would never be seen in something so ghost. So what is probably some British word that I'm looking for? Which queen? Did I recount about how I had an episode of road rage recently that I had to, sorry, a thoroughfare and sentiment that required a quick pivot?

No. Somebody was taking a great deal of time to make a decision about whether to proceed or not despite the fact that it was, they had the right of way. And I said, what are you waiting for an invitation from the Queen? And then I quickly realized that she's no longer with us. And I said, because you're not going to get one because she has expired. And I felt some guilt. Scream this out the window. I screamed it inside of the car. The window had been open. I would have screamed it in audibly. You were probably in an old broken shitbox where you couldn't

open the window quickly enough to yell. Yeah. But it required a bit of a pivot. Anyway, this episode of The Car Mugin Show is like many others part of the

Haggerty Podcast Network and is presented by Jason Camisa and me, Derek, Tam, Hyphen Scott. We discuss British cars, particularly the baddie getaway.

Notty, notty, yeah, crime British cars. I feel like this Jaguar Mark 1, which I have purchased. I think the sort of idea of a getaway car is something that's just so ingrained in American culture. Like we are allowed to have

hell cats. And we are allowed to have really fast. Like, first of all, our police officers all have large cannons with which they will shoot us. And this is not the case in the US. The UK's got this history of having cars

that are just known to be driven by near New Wales, bad people, baddies, bad guys. And the one sitting in the background is just sinister shade of non-metallic deep, deep, deep British racing green with dark metallic green, non-metallic green wire wheels looking incredibly, incredibly beautifully evil. Yeah, I love it.

It is perhaps the origin of that maybe the British viewers among us will be able to recount where there were other before this bad guy cars. But this is certainly in my mind knowing what I do about Great Britain. I think Corolla Deville probably would have had this after the donations were gone. Yeah, I think, you know, so we'll talk about the Jaguar Mark 1 bit of Jaguars competition history British car troubles the relationship between motor sports.

And road cars. And now this is really the new M3, the old M3, the new Jaguar. I prefer the or something. I prefer the construction where this is the original M3. Sure, that works. Great. Okay, you've heard it here first. Join us again next. Oh, we haven't even started yet. Oh, yes, I will do a clap.

I wish it wasn't real. You and me both the commenters last episode of a really funny just held Derek to cup the one hand hit the other hand with that yet. No, you hit the you cup one and then use your fingers of the second cup. Okay, I will not do that. It just doesn't matter. Okay, bye.

Okay. Okay. You have a lot of coasters. Yes, it's extra layers of protection here. I'm increasing the hydraulic head of my water bottle. The gravitational potential energy. Great. So when it spills, it'll go farther. It'll have more kinetic energy when it spills because all that gravitational potential energy. I'm going to take away some of them because I want to reduce the potential energy because there is a

rust situation happening in there. Can you hear it? We quiet down really quietly. I bet we can hear it rusting. Now, that's your rover, which is probably outside. This car is not terribly rusty. Yes, but it's also not terribly galvanized. It's definitely not galvanized, but nothing of this area is nothing even very few cars from the 1970s even are galvanized. I've been invented yet. I'm guessing.

Yeah, I push us started galvanizing floor pans only in 1971. Okay. And then they did whole body shell starting in 77. That's early. Yeah. And already Audi was quite early was first to do the full lineup. I think I feel it was that was a PEC thing. So when is that the early 80s early 80s. Yeah, fully galvanized bodies. Well, the cities did it in the in 84. I think this which somewhere or other anyway, that late surprising actually.

That's neither here nor there. This is here. If it's in the liminal liminal space, I guess that behind us is a jag you wire. Oh, God. It's got wire wheels on it. Oh, yeah. So that's the difference between jaguar and jag wire. The jaguars have wire wheels. The more you know. Oh, here we go. That is not true. It's jaggy.

Well, we get a lot of shit in the comments about this about our pronunciation of jack about and do we should we pronounce it coupé. We're not.

So here is the simple rule. We're extremely consistent. People give us a hard time about this. But they say you're mispronouncing it. Like, why do you give, you know, why do you pronounce it Porsche versus, you know, Porsche, Porsche, but you don't you say jaguar instead of jaguar.

And I think the answer here that you all are looking for. I know very enthusiastically is that the word jaguar has two pronunciations depending on where you are. And they're both accepted as correct pronunciations.

The word the improper noun, jaguar, the cat. Sure. Yes. Yes. Or any number of other words like coupe versus coupé. Those are both acceptable pronunciations in the English language depending on where there's regionalized for the United States or for the Queen's English Commonwealth countries.

So both are acceptable. Porsche is a proper noun which has no like there's no equivalent. It doesn't appear in the English dictionary. I assume. And if it does, it should be pronounced Porsche as two syllables because it's a foreign word.

So the question is, is it a foreign word or not? That to me is the litmus test about whether there's acceptability around multiple pronunciations. This is a proper noun, but it is named after an improper noun.

It's just a regular, very improper cat. So yeah, the same thing we don't call it a aluminum just because it was on a British car. It's aluminum. Yeah, that's what we call it. Correct.

There is some, some of the comments I've gotten to me are like, and yet Camisa mispronounces every single Japanese car company's name. And what I have to do is, at the end of the day, I defer to the car company itself.

I mean, Hyundai is not how it's pronounced in Korean, but it is how the company pronounced in marketing material. Hyundai likes Sunday. That was literally, and of course they stupidly missed the whole idea of getting the Commodore to go saying easy like, easy like, Hyundai morning.

But I can't, I mean, if the company, the Commodores, yes, yes, if the line or actually that is, so if the company says our name is Hyundai, I'm not going to correct them and say, no, you're Hyundai.

No, okay, fine, or Hyundai, I think it's even more of whatever it is, same thing with Toyota, same thing with Honda, right? And Mazda has not done a campaign saying, we are Matsuda.

Yeah, Mazda is what they call it. So it's regionalized for the country so that it's real Canadian. And then it's Mazda, Mazda, like pasta instead of pasta.

Yeah, what do they know? It's just a regional difference.

Exactly.

Anyway, we are here to talk about the Jaguar. You just did it extra syllable.

It was ironic. Subtitle.

Subtitle.

irony in play alert. Well, as the robotic people among us, which I am one, you know, you need really obvious science when irony or sarcasm is happening.

Otherwise, you know, otherwise you're in trouble.

Okay, so that behind us is a what year make model?

So this is a 1957 Jaguar.

I was going to start with a history lesson, which is the car came out in 1955.

It's a 1957 Jaguar Mark I.

It was before the Mark II came out, so it was not called the Mark I at the time.

It was retrospectively renamed or referred to as the Mark I, but it doesn't say Mark I anywhere on it or any of its materials.

It was just the Jaguar.

It was called the 2.4 or 3.4 liter saloon, officially, but you'd call it a Jag 3.4 or 2.4.

So the car arrived initially is a, do we go start with history or should we contextualize?

I think start with context.

This is, I think, a contender for the world's first sports sedan.

Can I just say it is achingly beautiful?

I think so too. I'm biased.

As a geriatric person with anglophile proclivities.

I have not driven one.

I've never sat in one.

I fully intend on doing burnouts after we record.

Yes.

In this car, in Donuts and the parking lot.

However, it's gorgeous.

And it was like many Jaguar products designed largely by Sir William Lyons, who is Mr. Jaguar.

He's...

He would be Mr. Jaguar.

Yes.

Okay.

Who started the company in the 1922 making side cars for the swallow side car company,

which is called SS at the time, because prior to World War II, SS had no sort of unfortunate meaning

which had gained during the war.

Yes. Super sport.

Yes.

Yes. Sure.

What does it storm?

What does it stand for?

SS.

We don't understand Germans.

Okay. Well, so the model, they started referring to certain cars as Jaguar's

during the pre-war years and then they changed the name of the company after the war.

And Sir William Lyons had a really good aesthetic sense and so he designed a lot of the cars.

And he had just a very good sense generally.

We've done a dedicated Jaguar episode.

Dead brand walking.

Yeah.

In which I extolled the virtues of the old company that was Jaguar.

But what you basically got was a world-class car at a very reasonable price.

And it was beautiful to look at and high performance was also part of the picture.

It was just like a have your cake and eat it to type of car.

And that was the thing that always made Jaguar special, including this one,

and the sports cars and the big sedans also.

So this was their first, up until this point, they had only made basically two different cars.

A big sedan and a sports car.

And this was their first small sedan.

And it had the sort of ingredients from their sports cars in it.

And so when people started running them in touring car races and other competitive rallies and stuff like that,

they were incredibly competitive at doing that.

And so they became, I think, one of the world's first sports sedans.

The other car you could argue maybe is the world's first sports sedan is what Alfa Romeo was doing at the same time,

which was the Giulietta, which we always see as a coupe or a spider designed by Bertone and Pininfrino respectively,

but they had an in-house sedan, which there was a hot version of called the TI Turismo Internationale,

which is still used today or was until the Giulietta.

Is the Giulietta dead yet? The current Giulietta?

No, just the QV.

Okay, so still used today the Turismo Internationale moniker,

which is the hottest version of the sedan that you could get at the time.

So that car came out around the same time as this one.

Maybe slightly later, actually.

I think the Giulietta came out in 54 or 55 as the Tudor, and then the sedan followed,

and this car came out in 1955.

So the beginning of the sports sedan.

The beginning of the sports sedan and the Alfa Romeo's that the sedan was effectively a sports car with a sedan body on it, correct?

I mean, it's all the same sort of sports cary type.

I mean, engine.

Yeah, the engine.

It was fundamentally shared, yes.

And actually, on that subject, this car was more sophisticated.

This car, the Mark I was more sophisticated than the sports car Jaguar was making at the time,

because it came out later.

The sports car that was being produced at the time was the Jag XK, the 120 and 140.

The 140 was just an update of the 120.

And because this car was newer, it had like a coil spring front end, for example,

which the sports cars did not have at the time and unitary construction, also, which the sports cars did not have.

This was Jaguar's first unitary car as opposed to separate body on frame construction.

So this was like everything they had learned in the ensuing seven years since the XK120 came out,

applied to the next car they happened to make, which was a sedan.

So, in some ways, it's more technically sophisticated than the sports cars you could buy at the same time.

So, more sophisticated suspension and chassis construction, but same engine.

Same engine.

Well, the 2.4 as it came out for the first two years.

The 3.4 didn't come out until 57.

It was the 2.4 for the first two years, 2.4 only for the first two years.

And the 2.4 was actually, if you conventionally read the displacement,

it's actually 2.5 liters, and it was a destruct version of the 3.4 engine that was used in the sports cars and in the big sedan.

Still the dual overhead cam XK engine that was introduced in 1948 and used until the early 90s in the Daimler DS420 and the Jag XJ6 until 86.

And so, this was a very sophisticated engine by anyone's standards.

It had a hemispherical combustion chambers, dual overhead cam shafts, which was really the big thing that was in the end of the time when a single overhead cam was a big deal.

Yes, that is true.

Big deal.

And so, this small version was 2.5 liters.

They destroaked it because as we've talked about with British cars of this era, the displacement tax or the taxation road tax was calculated on the basis of cylinder count.

And stroke, bore.

Oh, bore, that's right.

And so, if you wanted displacement, then you were incentivized, if you wanted to sell a car, to get the displacement via stroke rather than via bore.

And so, all the British engines of this period are all low revving tractor engines.

And that's one of those cases where you see a manifestation of regulations shaping the artifacts that come out of a particular country.

Meanwhile, Alfa Romeo is making these tremendously over square, high revving engines that are displacing less than 2 liters because there's no incentive that structure that there is in England.

But all the time stuff was under 2 liters.

Yes, it was all under 2 liters.

Exactly.

And so, those were 1,300 CC, 7,000 RPM in the Veloce engines at the same time, which was a very large number of RPM for that period.

But if you were making an engine for this car and trying to get tax advantageousness as this is, wouldn't you have just de-bored this engine?

Well, they, it wasn't a tax thing, it was they were trying to get the displacement down while maintaining things as much as they could the same.

And so, they actually shortened the deck height and the engine weighs 2 and a half weighs 50 pounds less than the 3.4 because they wanted to make the engine less heighty.

Tall, I guess, is the word we use in some places such as this one and everywhere else where English is spoken.

Have we both not had enough caffeine?

I mean, you're not a concentrated one.

I don't bring caffeine.

In sufficient caffeination.

So, the car came out with a 2.4 and it had 112 horsepower, it had silics carburetors.

The only Jaguar ever to use silics is rather than SUVs, most British cars use SUV carburetors.

And everyone sort of, the British magazines all said, oh, this thing's quite zippy.

I mean, when you compare it against what other things it was supposed to be competing against like Vox Halls and Ford's and Citroen DS's and stuff like that, it was pretty good performance.

But it had 112 horsepower and it was fine and sort of compared favorably to other cars that made 100 horsepower, which was pretty typical then.

And, of course, the Americans were like, it could stand more power, but it's pretty zippy for a small sedan.

So then the naturally the 3.4 was added, especially for the American market where Jaguar was doing this was all during the export or die era of Britain, rather.

Where they were really incentivizing getting Britain had no money period because they'd spent it all during the war.

And so they were really strongly favoring whatever you can make British industry, please make it such that it is exportable so we can sell it to other people so we can get some money into this country.

And so there was a strong emphasis on that and you see it certainly in cars, I'm sure it was present in other things, but I don't know as much about those subjects.

But yeah, you see in land rovers and all of these cars that were sold, especially in the United States and somewhat in Constantinople Europe, but less in Constantinople Europe because those guys also didn't have a whole lot of extra money to be spending on frivolous things like automobiles when they were sort of stored at the pieces still.

So the American market was very important to Jaguar and the XK was a big part of that and the mark to mark one was sort of altered in order to improve its appeal in the United States.

And a fair number of these cars were sold in the United States.

Is this a US market car?

I think it was on the mid-Atlantic coast.

I learned that it was originally white with a red interior, which is kind of charming and very period.

This particular car, so I guess we should all transition into...

Can I just say that a bit?

Yeah, please do, but can I just say that part of what I love about the way these cars look is that they're sinister?

Yes, there's something very sort of classic cartoonish sinister about them.

And white?

No, it's benign.

It's just friendly and Marshmello-y and non-trend.

I just think this car is lurking in the background, plotting our death right now.

But in the most elegant, possible way.

It's interesting that you read this car that way because I think a lot of American consumers, especially younger ones,

will read this shape as sort of baroque and elegant and distinguished and sort of non-threatening for that reason.

So for that generation, threatening would be an all-black kuntosh.

Or some kind of supercar-shaped thing that's very...

Or maybe it's a Russian mafia Mercedes from the 90s in S-Class with tinted windows.

All of those things for sure.

This was, I would say, the equivalent of an S-Class with tinted black tinted windows.

Well, no, exactly.

That's a clear, perfect transition to get us probably to motorsport, Bill.

There's one of the first cars that the Brits all thought baddies would drive, right?

If you wanted to rob a bank...

Yes.

You drove a Jag Mark II.

Right.

Because one, the cops couldn't keep up with it.

Yes.

In the same way that a Lotus Carlton similar color, 40 years later, was so fast that the cops couldn't keep up with it.

So everyone used the first match.

And critically, also, four doors and stuff to carry all the shit you just stolen.

Space to carry all the shit you've just stolen.

So that was kind of this car earned itself a reputation as being very naughty.

But I don't know that it has that in the American mindset.

It's interestingly, and I, like, post on my stories content of this car.

There's a quantity of people who, you know, chime in with it being very sinister

or ask me if I'm on my way to rob a bank or do other hooliganry.

And then a lot of other people are like, you look like an old man or whatever.

That's all of those things can be...

I mean, old man don't rob banks.

Don't be ridiculous.

That's ageist.

I'm sure there's a movie there.

I think it's probably Alan Arkin and Morgan Freeman.

And I'm casting some movie where there's a bunch of old men who are bad guys.

But I just think it's probably like the cartoons that we watchers that I watched as a kid.

That it made that shape.

So what it is is incredibly elegant.

It's just incredibly simple and elegant.

And all of the adornment is in the front.

It's all very, very clean.

And so I do think it's elegant and old man and baroque.

But it's also just the type of car that the bad guy in the cartoon would chose.

You can imagine sort of rearing up on it, you know, like bending in the wheelbase.

And then right after someone I just, yeah.

It certainly was used for that purpose because it was fast.

And the police also used them eventually in the United Kingdom as well.

And no guns.

And the racing drivers would use them too.

And so especially even in 2.4 liter form, which is actually 2.5.

And especially in 3.4 liter forms starting in 1957.

And so they would run, you know, in those days, this car is loosely a replica of a configuration that was owned or not owned.

Sorry, it was driven by a guy named Mike Hawthorne.

He's the first British F1 champion.

He won the F1 championship in 1958, I believe.

And he was driving for Ferrari.

But that in those days, if you were an F1 driver, you know, they were forming the one weekends.

And if there were other weekends that you weren't racing an F1 car, you know, didn't pay the way it does now.

You'd take a drive in whatever you could get.

And so he worked with Jaguar.

And he'd driven at Le Mans for Jaguar, because of course it should be added that Jaguar won Le Mans more times than anybody else in the 1950s.

They won in, I think five years in the 1950s, 57, 55, 51, 53, and probably 56 also.

Not in that order, obviously.

It's a very strange way to count years.

I'm not very good at counting.

So he drove for Jaguar at Le Mans.

And so he drove Jaguar touring cars, including a car that looked like this, which is to say it was dark green with a green interior with the color-coded wire wheels.

And normally these cars, if they had steel wheels, the early ones had spats that covered the entire rear wheel.

And it makes the car look very old fashioned.

And then the wire wheel cars, there's a little cutout for the spinner.

And then this car has a big cutout, which was sort of the hot rod setup.

So these are the paradigm spinners.

And then they did a bunch of performance upgrades.

And it was the car in which he was ultimately killed.

He was racing a 300 SL going on a public road driven by Rob Walker in January of 1959.

I think it was.

It was either 58 or 59.

He had just won the F1 championship in whenever that happens at the end of the year.

And then he had a couple months later.

And he announced a retirement for motor racing.

And then he was killed a few weeks later, basically driving a car that looked very much like this, but was right hand drive.

But he drove it to win at Silverstone in the previous summer.

And there was just a whole field of these cars and various other touring cars.

These were unstoppable, basically, unbeatable, where the Jag Mark 1 3.4s in saloon car racing during that period.

So yeah, wire wheels were optional as we're starting in 57 disc brakes.

Some very early use of disc brakes, especially in a sedan, the Citroen DS had front disc brakes in starting in 55.

And this was all four.

This was all four disc brakes because Jaguar started using disc brakes at Le Mans, I think in 53 or 52.

It was a pretty quick transition from F1.

I mean, think at Le Mans.

Well, I'm fair for a point.

Yes, world class motor sports to trickle down to family cars.

Yes, in a couple of years.

It was pretty amazing.

This was indicative of the stuff that the magic that represented Jaguar at this time.

Same thing with the E type.

I mean, I've said this many times with the level of sophistication of that car.

There was no car that had the list, the spec list that that car had at any price made by anybody.

And the cars were just dirt cheap for what they offered.

These same thing.

You read the period road test.

Everyone's like, these things are so cheap for what they are in terms of performance.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of a modern equivalent of something like this.

So a really well-built car.

That's, that was probably the thing they were the worst at.

Okay.

A beautifully luxurious and well-signed car.

Yes, with an actual racing engine.

Racing that had one little mall.

Quite literally the same year this car was built in 1950.

That's with that same engine.

Yes, right.

So a little more winning engine.

Disprakes that came straight from racing.

All of this pedigree.

And with like a beautiful leather interior with wood dashboard.

And there's wood around the window frames and all that shit at half the price of Mercedes.

Yeah, I mean, so the E type cost a third as much as a Ferrari 250 when it came in 1961.

And it was probably, it was less than on Porsche 356.

The spiciest of which had 90 horsepower.

It should be added.

The normal was 60.

The super was 75 horsepower.

And the super 90 was 90 horsepower.

So I mean, and the Jag was quoted at that time at 265 horsepower.

Those are admittedly optimistic horsepower.

This car, so the 2.4 was 112 horsepower.

The 3.4 was 210 horsepower.

And its top speed was in excess of 120 miles an hour.

I think it was 121 or 23 miles an hour depending who was testing in which way the wind was blowing.

And did 0-60 in 9 seconds.

That's not in 1957.

Not for the day.

Yeah.

I mean, those were numbers that in the 80s were still sort of quite respectable.

Absolutely.

Like if you watch an old John Davis Motorweek thing, we're happy with us.

He's like, oh, it did 0-60 in 9.4 seconds.

It's quite good for a family car.

Literally 30 years prior, this car was doing that.

And so it really was an outlier in terms of performance.

And so this one is, like I said, an early car.

It's a Mark 1.

There's not very many Mark 1s in the United States.

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Instead of survived, most people associate this shape with a Mark 2, which was just an improved version of this car.

The probably the easiest way to tell is the size of the windows and the surrounds of the windows.

Mark 2s have much bigger windows, all of the windscreens and the side windows and they have chrome window frames.

Which most people think are more aesthetically pleasing.

And the reason why they did this is because it was their first unitary car.

They were concerned that the chassis would not be strong enough if they put too many holes in it that were too large.

So they made the windows really unnecessarily small because they were like, well, unitary construction, this new fangled business, I don't know if we can be sure this is going to work.

So the later cars have larger windows.

I'm very partial to the Mark 1, but I almost everybody else prefers the Mark 2.

Which of the ones that we typically see racing?

It's a mix.

It's a good wood sliding around sideways.

You will see them both doing it.

We've talked about this before, but I think that's one of the most pornographic.

Yes.

Sounds and sites.

Sounds and sites in all of motoring.

Yes.

I completely agree.

And I was inspired to buy this car by going to Goodwood last year and seeing these cars circulating.

This configuration is exactly the configuration I wanted and it's, oh, it was like what I was specifically looking for.

And because my Hawthorns looked like this, it's relatively easy to find one in the UK that's done up like this in dark green with dark green wheels.

And sometimes they have a tan interior instead of green.

But I wanted the green, which is what his car had.

And I think just green interiors are cool, generally.

And so you can find them in the UK because that history and heritage is sort of appreciated and still sort of the torches carried on by events like the Goodwood Revival and various types of saloon car racing.

Which still exists.

But less of a thing in the United States, it's a more obscure car.

And most American cars tended instead of getting painted wires.

We almost always got chrome wires instead.

And that was true of the sports cars as well.

It was just America's more blingy.

And so we got white wall tires often and chrome wires.

So finding one with painted wires here in this color is a little bit difficult.

And that was, I felt very strongly.

And I wanted a left hand drive car for the US consumption.

So this car turned up for sale in like 2022.

And I really liked it, but I just didn't bid on it.

And I think I was like, I don't have any space for money to buy this thing right now.

And then I regretted not buying it, especially after going to Goodwood last year and seeing them all over the place and being like,

if that car ever turns up again.

So anyway, I found this car, the same car that was on Bringer trailer in 2022.

And I said, I have to buy this thing.

Especially because they're just not worth that much money.

And so most of the time they don't get restored to a high level.

And this car is pretty well restored or thoroughly restored.

And so it was, I mean, it's in the US, no import needed left hand drive in the configuration I wanted.

So I had to buy it.

What is price range for something like this?

The best, like, so Mark IIs are worth more than Mark Is.

And there was this big movement in the 90s as the guys who grew up dreaming about Mark I's, got some money.

And these are boomer age people are maybe even slightly older.

And that was the run-up of cars that are made during the 60s of values of stuff like e-types and 275s and Corvette stingrays,

whatever else really exploded in value in the sort of 90s, 2000s.

And so a lot of guys started upgrading these cars and putting five speeds in them.

And aluminum radiators doing a rack and pinion steering conversion with power assist.

And there was even a couple of outfits that would basically keep the aesthetics and then put modern jack guts in.

So you would get the X308 supercharged V8 4 liter with 370 horsepower with the transmission to go with it.

And then they do a rear end swap.

And then they do a live rear ends with a cantilevered spring design.

If you look underneath the car, you'll be like the leaf springs are installed upside down.

And the one end of the leaf spring attaches to the rear axle, the end.

Normally a leaf spring has a sort of elliptical semi elliptical shape, if you will, which is with the terminologies.

And one end attaches somewhere near the back bumper and then the other end attaches under the car and then the axle goes in the lowest part, which is the middle.

This is inverted first, so instead of being bowed down, it bows up.

And then the trailing end of the leaf spring attaches to the rear axle and the leading edge attaches to like a pocket under the floor, under the back seats.

And then the middle of it is also attached to the chassis of the car.

So it's a cantilevered spring.

So the middle is attached to the car, the highest point is attached to the car.

Are you actually using the whole spring or are you only using the half?

Because I'm guessing there's like a, so there is a link I should say there.

Oh dear.

Yes, it's quite extraordinary.

Oh dear, the Brits do very extraordinary things.

But I would say like the Rover SD1, it actually drives quite, it rides very nicely.

Hey, solid axles can do great things.

And you look at the, I mean, you watch them go around Goodwood and you will be very convinced of that ability.

Although maybe they're sideways all the time because of the rather unsophisticatedness of the rear suspension or the amusement factor.

And so yes, it has a weird, anyway, I went down this, so they do independent rear suspension conversions when they were doing the XJR upgrades and put power windows and power seats and all this crazy shit.

Yeah, this was popular back then.

And sometimes those turn up and they can sell like for above $100,000.

I'd say the best sort of 3.8 liter Mark II.

So the Mark II was available not just at the 2.4, the 3.4, but also the 3.8, which was not available ever in the Mark I.

The best, and you want a manual overdrive car, because there was a lot of permutations.

You could get automatics, which is a three-speed board one, or which probably sends its commands via telex or telegraph.

And so you don't want an automatic, a lot of them got swapped justifiably.

So you want a four-speed with overdrive, 3.8 Mark II is the sort of holy grail, most valuable configuration for one of these cars.

And those, you know, if it's not modified or altered in any ways, maybe a $75,000 car.

And on the other end, like a 2.4.

And a 2.4 Mark I, or I mean, you could buy one for that's rusty and functional for 10,000.

And you know, the best Mark I in the world is probably 50 or 60,000.

And a very good 3.4 liter Mark I is 30.

Wow.

Or so.

That's a hell of a visual statement for 10,000.

And experience.

Also, I think.

Well, I mean, just in terms of vintage car experience, and you know, these early, I prefer them, the early cars for a number of reasons.

The gauges are all in the middle on the Mark I.

They move them in front of the driver.

Like a driver.

Sure.

Exactly like a Prius.

Or a Z8.

Yes, there you go.

Thank you.

Or any sort of number of pre-war Alfa Romeo's and all that stuff.

So I like the gauges in the middle of the car.

And then then directly in front of the driver is a glove box without a lid.

And then in front of the passenger is a glove box with a lid for some reason.

And it's got this huge four spoke, you know, metal steering wheel, which is quite charming.

So I prefer the Mark I for the interior and the form factor and the smaller lights.

It's a little bit more delicate, except for the window frames, which are very much not delicate.

They're bulky.

On the Mark I, they're very bulky.

The pillars.

Oh, so the pillars actually, well, I guess the pillars would have gotten smaller if the opening's got bigger.

The opening's got bigger and the chrome trim.

So it just sort of visually removes some of that sort of massiness.

It's almost like a shape that they hollowed out to make the car as opposed to a greenhouse sitting on top of another form.

What a big mechanical upgrades for a series two.

So they widened the rear track by some like two or three inches between the Mark I and the Mark II.

That's probably the biggest upgrade and then the availability of 3.8.

There were sort of progressive changes over the years.

You know, they added a synchromesh first gear at some point, probably 65, I think.

But the rear axle is probably the single like most important technical change that they made to the car was widening the track,

which probably undoubtedly improves handling.

And you can retrofit the Mark II.

Or reduces over here, which I would say.

Is it minus?

It's not.

You can't retrofit the Mark II rear axle.

There's a lot of sort of aftermarket support for these cars generally because they are numerous and they've built them in large numbers and they're used for competition.

And so there's an appetite to upgrade stuff for these cars.

And so you can do all kinds of hot rotting to them.

You can do a triple carburetor conversion.

You can upgrade the brakes and stuff.

This one has upgraded brakes and it has discs, which was good.

This was originally equipped with this.

You know, I assume so because it was a US 3.4.

They were optional initially and then standardized later on.

And everyone sort of universally concluded that if you got the 3.4, you needed disc brakes.

That's a car that does 0-60 in 9 seconds.

Yeah.

In 1957, which was kind of about probably, that was Porsche territory back then.

Even the Porsche's were only 90 horsepower?

Correct.

Because Porsche's were 90 horsepower at the time.

So yeah, I mean it was a really, I think, remarkable performance car.

And it was, you know, Jaguar's for small car, as I said.

What other technical content was there in these cars?

I think it's, you know, very much centered around the powertrain and the price.

I mean, it was, I think, 1,600 pounds for one of these cars.

That was a lot of money back then.

The e-type was 2,000 pounds, but it was 6,000 pounds, which was house money for a Ferrari 250 at this time.

So this one is four-speed manual.

It is now a five-speed.

It was originally a four-speed with overdrive, which is the most desirable.

For with overdrive, meaning four plus a four-speed.

And then there's an overdrive switch, and then it engages overdrive thereafter,

which is functional on either third and fourth, or maybe it's just fourth.

So it gives you a fifth ratio.

And thoughtfully, Jaguar would give you a shorter final drive if you got a car with overdrive, which, you know.

The investable world.

Right.

Short of gears.

Yes, short of gears.

And then you can just engage your long cruising gear if you need.

But if the overdrive fails, then you are less happy.

And these are very torquy engines.

I mean, they make really good pulling power from down low.

And so you don't really have to rev them out.

I don't think it probably reps to 5,500 or something like that in street trim.

Which is still not bad for the era.

Especially when you compare it to American vehicles at the time.

Correct.

That can barely make it to 4,000 often.

Correct.

But yeah, everyone commented on how well the car handled, how well it braked, how well it accelerated, how well it just did everything.

And, you know, the idea of this car as a sort of car that might outperform sports car, the Jaguar sports car,

and certainly lesser sports cars, being in the family, but also be a family car, I think was really groundbreaking.

And, you know, it just paved the way for an entirely new genre of cars, which we now very much enjoy.

Especially because the car could handle.

You know, there was certainly a history of putting big engines in sedans, which Americans were very keen to do.

And Mercedes did it with the 6.3, 15.

Many, many years later.

Yeah, a dozen years later after this car came out.

Alright, that wasn't a cohesive sedan.

I think you're right in saying this was the first sports sedan.

I mean, this really was the M3 of its era.

If you think about, and it didn't have a buck tooth girl.

Well, Shane, it's got this big, it's toothy nonetheless.

It's toothy nonetheless, but no, I mean, the idea that you would have a family sedan that can keep up with sports cars.

And that was priced below.

That's maybe where the M3 of today falls apart a little bit, priced dramatically below its performance capabilities.

Yes.

That's not a bargain anymore.

And I mean, I don't know.

Do you think maybe it's Tesla that does performance that is disproportionate to the cost of the car today?

Good question.

I mean, Tesla has, let's just be very clear about something.

We are talking about Tesla the car company and not its political implications.

Tesla as a company and its engineers have completely redefined how to engineer an automobile and have moved the bar further than any other car company in our lifetime.

There is little doubt in my mind that the Model 3 is the best sedan in the world and the Y when I haven't driven the new one yet is will be the best overall vehicle in the world.

And it's a pretty difficult thing to say right now because I'm well aware that people are very upset or very large fans of one way or another.

If you're buying a Tesla, you are putting that outfit on and you're making a political statement one way or another.

And that's very difficult to divorce.

But that is the best sedan in the world, but I don't think it has any marketing chops.

I think it's just that is a focus on taking a car that is effectively a commodity product and then refining all of the rough edges on everyone else's cars and making what is effectively a better consumer product for the masses.

I'm not sure that's the same way.

No, not at all.

I'd say the core innovation that this car brought was the fact that you could do that in a car with four doors and have it be a family car.

It's a sort of well-rounded one car solution type of vehicle.

And I still think M3 wins there, right?

Yes, Tesla's offer performance far greater than their dollar and their MSRP would suggest.

But I don't think...

Yeah.

I think the other thing that this car does is it highlights a divergence which has occurred over...

I would say it started in the 1960s and it's still very much true now about the divergence between world-class motorsports and everyday cars.

And there is one of the reasons why the 250GTO is among the most valuable cars in the world is because it is a car that you can still drive on the street.

And now motorsports, I mean you experienced this when you did the drag race with the Le Mans Cadillac.

There is nothing about that car that would make it functional as a car for the average person.

It's not a car, right?

It's a race car, which it becomes such a very different thing.

Yes.

And this car is from the era where it was legitimately possible to make a statement like this engine won Le Mans this year and I am now driving down to the shops in it.

That was a different era and cars like the D type which was the car that they won Le Mans with in 55 and 50 probably 6 and definitely 57.

It's a car that you can drive on the weekend.

I mean as a car collector with deep pockets, you could have that in your garage and say I am going to take this down and put the Formula One car out today effectively.

Or the Le Mans winner and go do this with this car and have that direct relationship between motorsports technology and the car you drive every day.

The link is incredibly intimate in a way that just isn't feasible anymore because race cars have become so specialized and because we have pushed the envelope on technical possibility so much.

You know since the you think about what a Le Mans winning car looked like in 1970 it's a 240 mile an hour tube frame car.

That's not something you could you could drive it on the street but you wouldn't.

And in the 50s that was true and into the sort of 60s.

I would say right until when did that change happen?

Is it the GT 40? You know there were street versions of the GT 40 but not of the 917.

So it happened in the second half of the 60s I guess this one that.

And then we had a little bit of research this little bit rebirth with touring car in the touring car championships all the European.

Well that's a different category of car then there's far lesser sort of in this echelon of racing but we still did you could buy an E30 M3.

You could buy a D1 on Ecosworth you could buy a Ciera RS Cosworth and these are all cars Rover SD1.

I mean these are cars that did actually go out and win real races but they were not.

But they were not Le Mans.

I guess Porsche would be the close to all the Porsche 911 today.

I mean 911.

Yeah they have a new class though that they do specifically oriented towards a car that is based on a production car.

Yeah but isn't the RS R mid engine anyway.

I mean I don't know much about Le Mans racing but I'm pretty sure that Porsche campaigns the 911 RS R which is

with the engine move to the middle of the car which is decidedly not what a 911 is for the road.

Yeah and I think that's another thing that made the McLaren F1 so extraordinary.

It was kind of the last time that that happened 1995 when they won the Renault car which is particularly hilarious

because that car was engineered to be a road car.

And then they decided to competition prepare it and then win Le Mans.

If you just want to understand how absolutely badass McLaren F1 is I think that is a really good.

Have you ever done that?

Well I mean back in the old days everything was derived from a road car the XK120C which was the C type the first car that won

the Maw in 1954 Jaguar in 1951.

The car was developed as the XK120 as a sports car that they didn't even intend to manufacture and sell to the public.

And then they took them to Le Mans and they were you know surprisingly competitive in standard form and they said what if we put an aerodynamic body on this thing?

And then they were like holy shit they just cleaned everybody's clock in 1951.

So you know this is that is the origin or the beginning but prior to that they were always sort of just like street derived cars.

And then the transition between C type and D type which is you know happens in 1954 basically is the D type is the first dedicated competition car from the ground up as opposed to the C type being derived from road car.

And so Jaguar and everybody else presumably was sort of starting that process in the 1950s.

I mean the link at that point between the road cars and the race cars was so tight.

I think you know Mercedes-Gullwing that was 100% a race car had no intention to be sold to the public.

And now it is one of the most amazing road cars of all time.

And there have been a precious few number of those cars where that has happened.

You know the launch of strados effectively that car but yeah it doesn't happen too often.

Cool.

Well I congratulate you.

Thank you.

I mean this was a there are cars that I have historically not allowed myself to buy because I knew they were suicidal from a financial standpoint and this is one of them.

Where it I'm buying it not because you know I would love to buy cars exclusively with the mind towards it's a car that I want as opposed to like what else could I buy for this money that might perform better as a

in terms of appreciation.

You know like there have certainly been times in the past where I bought say I'm Mercedes 500E because I felt like there was potential where its value could go up instead of buying something like this or you know I've talked at length about how I would like a Ford Galaxy I haven't bought a Galaxy yet because I just don't

everything else that I want to own that costs the same thing I've you know from the 80s or 90s I think will be slip out of reach if I don't buy one now.

And so I have to buy certain cars that I think might go up because there's public cars like you know and so I that's one of the reasons I haven't owned them any cars from the older

period like this even though I want to it's just it's hard to rationalize doing when I know I could spend the same number of dollars on some other car.

But ever so often I do come unattainable that will then become slip yeah I was about to be slipping in values yes they are anything British with wire wheels is basically becoming increasingly affordable and you know this car I think is worth less than it was.

Probably for certainly five years ago I think certainly inflation that's it right yeah I think that's probably true and it's happened more with with e types and I think you know I hope that there will be more people

who consider buying old British cars as they slip into reach and the car that you might you know the 80s or 90s car that you might actually want it slips out of reach then you might consider like I can have an Austin he a big

a big heli for forty fifty thousand dollars because E 30 m three's of ninety thousand dollars now for example I mean that's I can't imagine someone would actually do that but it's part of my

calculus is that is these cars that I like that you know call it twenty years ago when a nine eleven SE was twelve or fifteen thousand dollars and a

type was eighty thousand dollars I would be like well I think I might you know I would love to have any type but when a nine eleven SE cost

fifteen thousand dollars I'm going to buy that because you know or a seventy two nine eleven is you know also eighty thousand dollars or three

fifty six is sixty thousand dollars or you know so it just for a fraction of that why wouldn't you yes yes it's the same and to make a

comparison to now it's like okay E thirty six or forty six m three's if you buy a well maintained my layer it's fifteen or twenty thousand

dollars and you say well yeah why would I buy an E thirty m three for ninety thousand dollars when I can buy an E thirty six m three for

seventeen that's in better condition not better condition ninety thousand which should get you very nice E thirty m three but you know it's

it's a literally a fraction of the money and so that calculus was happening for me around cars from the fifties and sixties

twenty or fifteen years ago and that's the reason why I but now they're slipping into reach and so it starts to become potentially so you're saying you're going to become an

even older man yes that's right yeah yeah I mean it depends on part of it also is you know having a business where I deal with

collector cars all the time I can sort of divorce the need the feeling that I need to make money on my personal cars which was always sort of like

a ideal goal that I would would factor into my decision making now that I'm making money on cars you know from my business I

I can sort of do dumb irresponsible stuff with my personal cars instead I mean dummy responsible stuff I would argue that buying that

versus a Honda Civic which were effectively the same price no I I don't want to use the term no matter what happens to

that car but in all likelihood the total cost of ownership of that for the next three years depends what price you buy a thirty eight

thousand dollars I don't know which pay for the car doesn't matter it's pay a thirty eight thousand dollars Civic it's going to be worth

twenty what's residual fifty eight percent of of that will be what's factored in the lease you've lost sixty

percent of almost forty grand I mean at the end of the day you've lost twenty something thousand dollars yeah twenty

thousand dollars will go a long way towards keeping that on the road electrical repairs

was this pre-British electrical disaster no no it probably delivers on all that stuff it's been it's actually been

funded tinker I've taught myself how to at least get the carburetors to a happier state and I'm improving

things I've found the correct horns for it which sound suitably dignified so I'm just sort of enjoying tinkering

with it I would I would like to if they'll have me take it on something like the California me lay or something

like that although maybe everyone will hide all of their valuables if I'm there in that car you can be trusted

anyway but it is nineteen fifty seven so it's technically eligible but they kind of want sports cars there so well like I

think you've given a reasonable defense defense that it's actually a sports car with a with a saloon body on it

also it's just incredibly gorgeous yeah I'm I'm very delighted with this car I haven't enjoyed a car

that I've bought recently like that that in in my honey moon period I haven't enjoyed with a new car

so much in recent memory because you keep buying sock away or Mercedes I know there's just the lack of novelty

and the Citroën delivered some of that but then it sort of broke shortly after I bought it and was out

of commission for some months so that abruptly terminated the abruptly and decisively terminated

the honey moon period but yeah I was just like within the first 48 hours I was like I'm so glad I bought this car

I absolutely adore it it was like a guilty thing that I didn't want to let myself do but I just it the exact car

that I want it turned up and I was like okay I have to buy this and I have I feel a lot of joy

and gratification from this particular purchase so that's what's supposed to happen from car ownership

yes very so I'm sure it won't be without trouble but whatever whatever what what that's worth it is without trouble

in the car world I mean the people who love and enjoy their sort of low maintenance 90s Japanese cars

like NSXs and super they still have problems that's the crazy thing to you know I made a post

a friend of both of ours has has just recently become another British car fans

so now I have British cars you have British cars and he has a British car a British car

and he has two Range Rovers P38 and L322 and as L322 he was looking for a license plate on this

this is GGU we've talked talked about and he was coming up with a license plate for it

and I was coming up with a license plate for the car and I was in one of my slap happy creative moods

writing a script and I just started sending him plate after plate after plate after plate

there's one of these text message threads where I sent him like 40 screen grabs of wildly inappropriate

but hilarious plates and then one of them that I sent him was need AAA

and he burst out laughing it ordered it and then forgot he had ordered it

because it takes forever to get the plates plates showed up last week and he put it on the car

and I had such a laugh when I saw that and he made it four blocks and the car died on him

and not only just died on him he was in the middle of a street it was street cleaning day

and so the cars on the right were all trying to get out to get out of their parking spots

he was going up the hill and he was in the middle of the road and it just shut off

like just I mean this is not that old of a car

also I should point out he bought the car for like something like ten or eleven thousand dollars

and has thirty something thousand dollars with the receipts for the car over the last two years

from the previous owners or from his ownership

both combined combined and so this car should be relatively sorted and free of maintenance

car dies in the middle of the street so of course the parking Nazis are coming to like get to tow all the cars away

because street cleaning stopped and he's like can't ticket me I'm not parked

I'm broken down and I'm in the middle of the road blocking traffic in both directions

but it wouldn't even respond like he'd hit the key and it would just not respond

didn't cranked it and anything so I could not be put in neutral

couldn't do anything finally figured out a way to get it in neutral

and back the car down into a driveway until the tow truck

should come of course there's a hilarious video of his car with need triple A license plates

on being put on a tow truck I live for this shit but I kind of feel bad

trust that he was not living for this shit at the time

I mean he did find it funny enough that he made all kinds of post to it

it is it is what it is

but I do I the complexity does scare me in that era

I mean I couldn't I don't think I have the stomach tone a more modern British car

yeah parts prices and you know in this case

yeah and the lack of ability to do things yourself

like I have been impressed with this car that all of the sort of niggles that I've identified

I've been sort of able to intuit my way through figuring out what it was

like the brakes weren't releasing and it's like okay what could it be it's like

brake booster or the check valve that supplies the reserve for the brake boost

after the engine's off or you know you can sort of and fiddling with

carburetors and sort of various things it's been sort of there's only there's a very

finite menu of things that could possibly be failing and that's not true I think

in modern cars and that scares me a lot of them

I mean even the the shop that took his Range Rover

replaced so what it turned out was is the fuse that is on the engine electronics

blue and they were trying to figure out what it was and it's one of a bunch of

different things these cars have voltage spike issues because the way the alternators

go as they throw too many volts at everything so they measured alternator output

it was fine and then all of the things that are on that one circuit

it is there's like a coolant after run pump and a fuel pump that are on that circuit

and they tested both of those and everything seemed fine

and then the mechanic finally was like well we replaced a bunch of things

and we've looked everywhere and we think we've you know it's probably just an anomaly

it took it for a drive and died and had to leave it on the side of the road overnight

because you couldn't get a tow truck and it was blocking where I mean it was just

it didn't bring the fuse in question that no because now it's immediately blowing

okay well that's good that's progress that's exactly so now you can start

to unplugging different things yes everything was unplugged and it's still

blowing so it appears to be that it's a harness issue and that's only

it's only shorting out direct to ground while the car's facing uphill because

it broke down on a hill a hill again for them and if they yeah

British car is what it is it is what it is

this part of the hobby yeah well this is much less complex

I think the next frontier is suspension upgrades I would really like to get

this thing handling in a way where I can start hustling it it you know feels

archaic right now and I would like to just sort of upgrade it so I just want to

see it sliding around corners the way we watch it good yeah I don't this it has

four turns locked lock so it's not fast enough steering to and I'm very curious

to know how the race cars are set up because those guys are definitely using

opposite lock and I don't know if they have they probably can't do rack

conversions and still have them be legitimate for FIA competition anyway my

guess is that old tire technology plus a really long wheelbase like that and a

solid axle means everything moves around very slowly and if as long as you have

enough physical room in the cabin to be able to just turn the wheel 90 or

120 or 270 degrees and one you know within a split second

let's take it out in the parking lot we'll find out let's get it wet first

all right well congratulations on your new car thank you think it's beautiful I

encourage everyone to drive by weird old cars independent I it's it's very it feels

very profligate but I just I got so much joy out of this that I do encourage

everybody to do something similar cool same and don't call us when it breaks

certainly not will be busy dealing with hours you are home broken stuff okay

join us again next week see you next win the commercial and probably will continue

to be probably

Your BMW M3 Comes Thanks to Jaguar — The Carmudgeon Show w Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep. 186

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