Here’s a rare glimpse behind the scenes at Jaguar Cars, Ltd. for the development of the Mark X, the company’s luxury sedan of the ’60s. Great little film, check it out.
REVISED AND UPDATED — Big and flashy by British standards, the Jaguar Mark X was the automaker’s top-of-the-line passenger sedan for much of the 1960s. Also marketed as the Mark 10 and Mark Ten, the dramatically styled four-door made its first appearance before the world at the London Motor Show in October of 1961, where it made a lasting impression. The Jag saloon was highly advanced for a passenger sedan of its day with technical features borrowed from the company’s E-Type sports car, including the famed 3.8-liter, 265 hp twin-cam six and disc brakes and independent suspension on all four corners. The Mark X’s reliability proved to be less impressive, but in those days mechanical hassles were simply part of the Jaguar experience.
Naturally, our favorite parts of this five-minute factory film include the priceless behind-the-scenes footage of the Mark X test mule in the engineering garage, at the proving grounds, and in road trials in Europe. However, the second half of the clip with glamour shots of the production Mark X in color is fairly compelling, too. Video follows.
As a son of the south, I have spent my entire life pronouncing the name of these cars as Jag War. It is only in the last few years that I have become accustomed to hearing it pronounced as Jag ewer.
Most people I know were using “Jag-wire.”
Great film. Interesting to hear them describe the testing process being about setting the standard. In terms of performance, yes. But reliability… I don’t think it was a design problem – as these mules show, you could run these things for 100K miles in prototype form. More likely poor manufacturing – high precision tools and machinery weren’t British strengths.