Jaguar Mark X
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Jaguar Mark X (Mark Ten), later renamed the Jaguar 420G, was British manufacturer
Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...
's top-of-the-range
saloon car A sedan or saloon (British English) is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with separate compartments for an engine, passengers, and cargo. The first recorded use of the word "sedan" in reference to an automobile body occurred in 19 ...
for a decade, from 1961 to 1970. The large, luxurious Mark X succeeded the Mark IX as the company's top saloon model, and was primarily aimed at the United States market. The company hoped that the car would appeal to heads of state, diplomats and film stars.Classic Jaguar Mark X – Telegraph
/ref> Introduced in the same year as Jaguar's iconic E-Type, the Mark X impressed with its technical specification and innovations. Contrary to its predecessors, the car featured integrated, unitary bodywork – the largest in the UK at the time, as well as
independent rear suspension Independent suspension is any automobile suspension system that allows each wheel on the same axle to move vertically (i.e. reacting to a bump on the road) independently of the others. This is contrasted with a beam axle or deDion axle system in w ...
, unheard for early 1960s British luxury cars. Combined with the 3.8-litre, triple carburettor engine as fitted to the E-type, it gave Jaguar's flagship a top speed of and capable handling at less than half the price of the contemporary
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud The Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud is a luxury automobile produced by Rolls-Royce Limited from April 1955 to March 1966. It was the core model of the Rolls-Royce range during that period. The Silver Cloud replaced the Silver Dawn and was, in turn, r ...
. Despite press acclaim from both sides of the Atlantic, the Mark X never achieved its sales targets. When Jaguar decided to replace its entire saloon range with a single new model, the resulting XJ6 of 1968 used the Mark X as a template – albeit with a reduced size. Jaguar didn't build another car as large as the Mark X / 420G for the rest of the century, until the LWB version of the 2003–2009
Jaguar XJ (X350) The Jaguar XJ (X350) is a full-size four-door luxury saloon manufactured and marketed worldwide by Jaguar for model years 2003–2009 as the third generation of the Jaguar XJ saloon — carrying the internal designation ''X350'' and the int ...
. The rarest now is the Mark X with the 4.2 Ltr engine as only 5137 were built and few are known to survive.


Body

In 1961 the Mark X introduced a new upright, and slightly forward-leaning nose design for Jaguar saloons, with four headlamps set into rounded front fenders (derived from
Daimler DK400 The Daimler DK400, originally Daimler Regina DF400, was a large luxury car made by The Daimler Company Limited between 1954 and 1959 replacing their Straight-Eight cars. Distinguished, after the Regina, by its hooded headlights it was Daimler ...
), and a vaned grill. This front-end style reappeared on many of the manufacturer's successive saloons, up to and including the X-Type and third generation
Jaguar XJ The Jaguar XJ is a series of full-size luxury cars produced by British automobile manufacturer Jaguar Cars (becoming Jaguar Land Rover in 2013) from 1968 to 2019. It was produced across five basic platform generations (debuting in 1968, 1986, 1 ...
, ''both'' through 2009 — thereby forging Jaguar saloons' look for almost half a century. Instead of relying on
body-on-frame Body-on-frame, also known as ladder frame construction, is a common motor vehicle construction method, whereby a separate body or coach is mounted on a strong and relatively rigid vehicle frame or chassis that carries the powertrain (the engin ...
construction, like its predecessors and most of its competitors, the Mark X received a
unitary Unitary may refer to: Mathematics * Unitary divisor * Unitary element * Unitary group * Unitary matrix * Unitary morphism * Unitary operator * Unitary transformation * Unitary representation * Unitarity (physics) * ''E''-unitary inverse semigroup ...
body-shell, codenamed "Zenith" during its development. Its
floorpan The floorpan is a large sheet metal stamping that often incorporates several smaller welded stampings to form the floor of a large vehicle and the position of its external and structural panels. In the case of monocoque designs, the floorpan i ...
remained in production in elongated form, long after Mark X production ended, forming the basis of the
Daimler DS420 The Daimler DS420, also known as the Daimler Limousine, is a limousine made by The Daimler Company Limited between 1968 and 1992. The car was designed for official use and it was popular with chauffeur services, hoteliers and undertakers. It ...
Limousine until 1992. But at the same time, the interior was Jaguar's last to feature abundant standard woodwork, including the dashboard, escutcheons, window trim, a pair of large bookmatched fold out rear picnic tables, and a front seat pull-out picnic table stowed beneath the instrument cluster. Later, air conditioning and a sound-proof glass division between the front and rear seats were added as options. The substantial doors required helical
torsion spring A torsion spring is a spring that works by twisting its end along its axis; that is, a flexible elastic object that stores mechanical energy when it is twisted. When it is twisted, it exerts a torque in the opposite direction, proportional ...
s inside the door pillars to enable them to be opened from the inside with an acceptably low level of effort. From its introduction in mid-October 1961 until the arrival in 1992 of the low-slung XJ220, the Mark X stood as one of the widest production Jaguars ever built. Asked in 1972 if he thought the Mark X had grown rather too large, Jaguar chairman
William Lyons Sir William Lyons"Sir William Lyons – The Official Biography" by Philip Porter & Paul Skilleter, Haynes Publishing (4 September 1901 – 8 February 1985), known as "Mr. Jaguar", was with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the co ...
, agreed that it "definitely" had: he opined that the then recently introduced and notably more compact
Jaguar XJ6 The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the thi ...
was, by contrast an "ideal size".


Mechanical

The Mark X was the first Jaguar saloon to feature
independent rear suspension Independent suspension is any automobile suspension system that allows each wheel on the same axle to move vertically (i.e. reacting to a bump on the road) independently of the others. This is contrasted with a beam axle or deDion axle system in w ...
designed by William Heynes, who was Jaguar's Technical Director and Chief Engineer. It differed from earlier large Jaguar saloons in having 14" wheels instead of the more common 15". It used a wider-track version of Jaguar's IRS unit first seen on the E Type, which was subsequently used on Jaguar vehicles until XJ-S production ended in 1996. The front suspension used double wishbones with coil springs and telescopic dampers. Power initially came from the E-type's version of Jaguar's 3781 cc XK in-line six-cylinder engine designed by W Heynes, developing either or , depending on compression ratio. A 9:1 compression ratio was standard, but an alternative 8:1 compression ratio was available as an option. For the
London Motor Show London Motor Show, formerly the London Motorfair, is a motor show in England. It was held biannually at Earls Court Exhibition Centre, from 1977 to 1999. When the event won the support of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and P&O Ev ...
in October 1964 the enlarged 4,235 cc unit took over, although the 3.8-litre unit could still be specified until October 1965. Triple
SU carburettor SU carburettors were a British manufacturer of constant-depression carburettors. Their designs were in mass production during most of the twentieth century. The S.U. Carburetter Company Limited also manufactured dual-choke updraught carburettor ...
s were fitted, fed from an AC Delco air filter mounted ahead of the right hand front wheel. Transmission options were
manual Manual may refer to: Instructions * User guide * Owner's manual * Instruction manual (gaming) * Online help Other uses * Manual (music), a keyboard, as for an organ * Manual (band) * Manual transmission * Manual, a bicycle technique similar to ...
, manual with
overdrive Overdrive may refer to: Organizations * OverDrive, Inc., a digital distributor of entertainment media ** OverDrive Media Console, a media player developed by OverDrive, Inc. * Overdrive PC, a subsidiary of Velocity Micro Technology * Overdrive ...
, or automatic . The arrival of the 4.2-litre power unit coincided with the introduction of a newly developed all-synchromesh four-speed gear box, replacing the venerable box inherited by the 3.8-litre Mark X from the Mark IX, which had featured synchromesh only on the top three ratios. Many domestic market cars and almost all cars destined for the important North American markets left the factory with a Borg Warner automatic gear-box. The 4.2-litre engine's introduction was also marked by a transmission upgrade for buyers of the automatic cars, who saw the Borg Warner transmission system switched from a DG to a Type 8 unit. The power train was completed by a Thornton Powr-Lok limited-slip differential. Stopping power for this heavy car came from power-assisted four-wheel disc brakes, the rear units being mounted inboard alongside the differential. Power-assisted steering was standard, the later 4.2 cars receiving Marles Varamatic Bendix (Adwest) variable ratio steering boxes, designed by an Australian, Arthur Bishop.


420G

For the
London Motor Show London Motor Show, formerly the London Motorfair, is a motor show in England. It was held biannually at Earls Court Exhibition Centre, from 1977 to 1999. When the event won the support of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and P&O Ev ...
in October 1966 the Mark X was renamed the Jaguar 420G (not to be confused with the smaller
Jaguar 420 The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...
). The 420G was distinct from the Mark X only with the addition of a vertical central bar splitting the grille in two, side indicator repeaters on the front wings, and a chrome strip along the wing and door panels (two tone paint schemes were also available with the chrome strip omitted). Interior changes included perforations in the central sections of the leather seats, padded dashboard sections for safety, moving the clock to a central position, and the introduction of air conditioning as an option. A
limousine A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment. A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a prof ...
variant was available on the standard wheelbase; a fixed, one-piece seat back topped with a sliding glass partition replaced the separate chairs of standard cars. Despite running for the same length of time as the Mark X (five years) the 420G sold in less than a third of the numbers. This lack of popularity and the increasing production of the smaller XJ6 resulted in the 420G being run out of production in 1970.


Eight seater

In 1968 British Leyland ended production of the Daimler limousine DR450 and the
Vanden Plas Princess The Princess is a version of the Austin A99 Westminster produced by BMC from 1959 to 1968, latterly under the Vanden Plas marque. The model was launched in October 1959 under the name Princess 3-litre. From July 1960, these vehicles bore the ...
and chose to replace them by offering a extra-long wheelbase 420G with an eight-seater Hooper "Empress Line"-inspired (but still
monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...
) body made by Vanden Plas.Daimler's £4,424 challenger. ''The Times'', Tuesday, 11 Jun 1968; pg. 4; Issue 57274 Aside from the shape of the rear part of the coachwork there was no link with Daimler cars made before Daimler became a subsidiary. British Leyland's "Daimler DS420" was announced in June 1968. Taller than the 420G the new car was nearly nineteen feet long and six feet six inches wide with "majestic proportions". The rear compartment carried six people in comfort on the rear seats and three fold-away occasional seats. Sir William Lyons pointed out it was less than half the price of any of its competitors. The 420G wheelbase was extended by 21", with the mechanical underpinnings of the car being subtly reconfigured. This eight-seater car was built until 1992 and used by many countries in official capacities. It was frequently used by
funeral homes A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the dead and their families. These services may include a prepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral. Services ...
for carrying mourners or in modified form as a
hearse A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin at a funeral, wake, or memorial service. They range from deliberately ano ...
.


Scale models

A year after the Mark Ten's launch, popular toy car maker
Corgi Toys Corgi Toys (trademark) is the brand name of a range of die-cast toy vehicles created by Mettoy and currently owned by Hornby Railways, Hornby.238 Corgi Jaguar Mk10 - DiecastGems
/ref>


See also

*
Jaguar 420 The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...
— the Jaguar S-Type (available as 3.4 L or 3.8 L) was developed into the 4.2 L Jaguar 420 with its restyled nose in 1966, the same year the 4.2 L Mark X became the 420G.


Further reading


Road test: the Jaguar Mark 10
Motor Sport Magazine ''Motor Sport'' is a monthly motor racing magazine, founded in the United Kingdom in 1924 as the ''Brooklands Gazette''. The name was changed to ''Motor Sport'' for the August 1925 issue. The magazine covers motor sport in general, although from ...
Archive, July 1963, from page 20.


References


External links


www.saloondata.com
Volunteer register with records and photos of the Mk. X (among other Jaguar saloons)

€”GB Classic Cars (British classic car website) {{Jaguar
Mark X Mark X or mark 10 often refers to the tenth version of a product, frequently military hardware. "Mark", meaning "model" or "variant", can be abbreviated "Mk." Mark X or mark 10 can specifically refer to: In technology In military and weapon ...
Luxury vehicles
Jaguar Mark X The Jaguar Mark X (Mark Ten), later renamed the Jaguar 420G, was British manufacturer Jaguar's top-of-the-range saloon car for a decade, from 1961 to 1970. The large, luxurious Mark X succeeded the Mark IX as the company's top s ...
Sedans Cars introduced in 1961