1968 Jaguar 340 / MK II

There’s a very sad story here. Bought in the early 1990s with the highly desirable 3.8-litre transplant (from a 1964 Mk 2) already done, this car has spent the best part of thirty years in the same ownership. The owner, a man who was good with his hands whether it was fixing up cars or houses, got his pleasure not so much from driving the Jaguar as from fettling and improving it in his garage, which over the last five years had been in Exmoor.

There was never a plan to get rid of the 340, but an upcoming move to a new property with nowhere to store it forced this sale. Tragically, just as the Jaguar was approaching the final stage of its recommission in readiness for the sale, the owner passed away. A close friend is now seeing the selling process through, with the Jag being offered "No Reserve".

As a glance at the MOT history will indicate, this 340 has done very few road miles in those three decades. Although this can’t be verified, the 46,500 miles on the clock could very well be correct.

Happily this Jaguar has escaped the rotten fate that often befalls cars (and especially Mk 2s) that are left dormant. To keep its lifeblood flowing, it was hooked up to a trickle charger and routinely started at least once a week. Few weeks would go by when it wasn’t being worked on – probably the best way to keep a car fresh and alive when it isn't actually being driven.

Part of that was a comprehensive bare-metal rebuild early in the 1990s which we’ll get into later. The result of the late owner’s labours is a superb 1960s Jaguar hybrid combining the best features of the Mk 2 with the more youthful metal and materials of a later 340, plus a couple of well judged ‘comfort and convenience’ features from an even later Jaguar, specifically the front seats and superior power steering rack from an XJ6.

Bringing the 340 up to modern standards was clearly a major goal of the rolling restoration programme. It now benefits from a Kenlowe fan, full stainless steel exhaust system, Koni shocks, recored radiator (to modern standards) and contactless fuel pump. The electrical system is powered by an alternator rather than a dynamo.

Although this is an older restoration, meticulous storage and the ongoing programme of maintenance has served this Jaguar well. That and a huge list of body repair work in the 1990s, including new sills, door bottoms, jacking points, valances, splash panels, indicator sections, sidelight housings – all using high quality Martin Robey parts.

The panel fit seems remarkably good for what is effectively a Mk 2, and the two-pack paint in the classic Jaguar hue of Carmen Red, is still lush and deep both on the external panels and in the boot. There are some small bubbles here and there, for example on the offside front wheelarch and around the nearside sidelight, but generally speaking it’s all there and ready for a machine polish to take away the odd faint polishing scratch mark.

Plenty of new chrome trim has been added over the years. The bumpers have been rechromed twice, most recently in 2018. As you can see from the pictures, it’s all in great shape. The 3.8 badges front and rear and the rear wheel spats are neat period additions.

Topping the whole car off, quite literally, is a full-length Webasto sunshine roof. The cloth used in these Webastos was pretty heavy and doesn’t move around much at speed. Fitting the wood and metal Webasto frame to a Mk 2 is a specialist job, so this is a very nice extra to have. It was overhauled during the last owner’s tenure of the car.

If you want confirmation on teh quality of the 90s work, just look inside that boot, superb.

Facing you behind the wood-rimmed Moto-Lita style steering wheel is the classic Jaguar dashboard. Packed with important-looking instruments and switches, the Jaguar dash was schoolboy fantasy stuff back in the 1960s and it still is today for the older, grizzlier schoolboys among us.

The idea of setting precision instrumentation into a lump of wood from an old tree has no obvious rationale – you don’t see many aircraft with wooden dashes – but it’s a look that has always worked in fine cars, and Jaguars in particular, for a very long time.

The addition of the legend ‘OVERDRIVE’ in its own panel atop the steering column adds to the mystique and conjures up visions of loping along the Autoroute Du Soleil in high summer with Ella Fitzgerald or Ol’ Blue Eyes crooning on the radio. Talking of which, there’s no radio fitted at present, but that does give you a perfect excuse to fit an old-style (but internally modern) unit from someone like Tadpole.

Kickplates, better-quality replacement carpets and replacement door cards are all in excellent shape. The central console is not pristine, a clear invitation if ever there was one to add a few marks of your own by giving this car its head on the public roads. You’ll be comfortable while doing so thanks to the inspired substitution of the original and not massively supportive front chairs with XJ6 headrested recliners. For peace of mind there’s a battery isolator switch below the dash on the driver’s side, while in the ashtray there’s a key to isolate the fuel pump.

All the rubbers have been replaced, including those for the windows and bootlids, and so have the ‘furflex’ door seals.

The louvred bonnet hints that there might be something special at the heart of this lovely car, and so there is. In place of the 3.4-litre XK6 engine is the 220bhp 3.8-litre, without question one of the all-time greats. It gave the Mk 2 3.8 a 0-60 time of eight and a bit seconds, and romped it on to a 125mph top speed – decent performance even now, nearly sixty years later. Back then it was the world’s fastest saloon.

The owner of this car knew that its twin SU carbs would need some attention before sale, so they have both been recently rebuilt and refitted. Even so, a little more work will be needed to get the engine running ‘just so’. It starts on the button, but once the automatic choke drops out there’s some popping and spitting. The air filter has gone missing somewhere along the line but these are easily available online. There would be no other reason for the successful bidder not to drive the car away, but as things stand it would need to be trailered from its current home here with us in Abingdon. Information on getting some help with this can be found in the What We Think section below.

Our necessarily brief test drive found that the brakes are binding slightly, but other than that, this Jaguar looks to be mechanically fit once the recommissioning is completed.

A new clutch was fitted in the early 2000s, and a new fuel pump in 2018. The wiring was checked. The dynamo was replaced with an alternator, the ammeter with a voltmeter.

The wire wheels would appear to be genuine Jaguar knock-offs. The suspension was overhauled with new rear springs, Koni shocks, new rubbers and sealed-for-life ball joints. The brakes were overhauled with a new master cylinder and some copper brake pipes.

The car is registered on the V5C as a 3.8 from 1 August 1968. The original service book is present and the entries stop short of the 45,000-mile marker.

The comprehensive folder of paperwork includes all the MOTs from 1989 along with receipts for (among other things) suspension bushes, ignition and other electrical parts, trim parts, brake components, and fuel pump, and for the rechroming of both bumpers. There’s some old Crypton tuning documentation in there too. Eeh, it takes you back.

A photo album tracks the 1990s bare-metal restoration in the same sort of painstaking detail that the owner instinctively lavished on his car.

We tend to think of the Golf GTI as the archetypal compact performance car, but the Jaguar Mk 2 was there long before it. Our car is the later 340 but with the pukka 3.8 engine that was discontinued in the new model. That heart transplant fully restores the Jag’s masculinity and potentially turns it into a proper A-roads marauder in the best Mike Hawthorn tradition or, with the overdrive switched in, a relaxing motorway cruiser more than capable of keeping up with the pushiest of modern traffic.

Remember that this "No Reserve" car has covered fewer than 2200 miles since its purchase in 1990. As noted, the indicated mileage of 46,500 miles can’t be verified, but true or not, the general condition and presentation of the car is such that you wouldn’t have too much trouble convincing admirers of its veracity. We expect this to sell for broadly between £15,000 - £25,000.

We always encourage viewings. This lovely Jaguar is here at The Market HQ in Abingdon. Clicking the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing will allow you to arrange an appointment. Before that, or at any time during the process, you’re invited to ask questions or make observations in the comments section below. The ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ bit should deal with most questions about how The Market works.

To help buyers we can strongly recommend our small but perfectly formed network of trusted suppliers: Classic & Sportscar Finance for purchase-financing, Thames Valley Car Storage for storing your car, AnyVan for transporting it, and Footman James for classic car insurance.

BORING, but IMPORTANT: Please note that whilst we at The Market always aim to offer the most descriptive and transparent auction listings available, we cannot claim they are perfect analyses of any of the vehicles for sale. We offer far greater opportunity for bidders to view, or arrange inspections for each vehicle thoroughly prior to bidding than traditional auctions, and we never stop encouraging bidders to take advantage of this. We do take a good look at the vehicles delivered to our premises for sale, but this only results in our unbiased personal observations, not those of a qualified inspector or other professional, or the result of a long test drive.

Additionally, please note that most of the videos on our site have been recorded using simple cameras which often result in 'average' sound quality; in particular, engines and exhausts notes can sound a little different to how they are in reality.