Topic: Solved : NEH 1566: Jaguar 3.4 litre Coupe proposal - 1956

[Carnut]

What's this, from when - for 1 point?

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[richard cuyler]

Wow! Superb.

[fgsavoia]

English?

[Carnut]

English?

Yes.

[Carnut]

Experts?

[Delorean]

The back reminds me of a 1955 Jaguar Mk I or 1959 Mk II ... Maybe some sort of prototype of a Coupé-version?

[bentleybob]

Jaguar experimental mockup for first thoughts on XJ6, often described as an option for a two door Mark II, which does not make sense as the Mark II was already in production since the fifties, and getting long in the teeth. Also, the width is an indication.

[72Must]

Jaguar prototype / styling mockup c '54/ '55 for a sportscar possibly based on the then new mk1 saloon monocoque ,Jaguar was considering this as an xk 140 replacement ?

[Carnut]

Jaguar is right.
But no-one has quite got the year right yet, nor what this model is described as on the 'site where I found it (which may or not be correct, as is usual with these 'sites...)
AFAIK it wasn't meant to be a replacement for anything, more an extra model.

[bentleybob]

1956 is year that comes to mind..

[Delorean]

I've found this picture by typing in Google 'Jaguar Mk I Coupé'. Is this the same car as the puzzle picture? If it is, I wasn't far off mith my first guess. It doesn't say a specific year, just 'mid 1950s' ...

[Carnut]

It's the same car all right.
The year was 1956 (as bentleybob says), and since there was actually no such thing then as a 'Mk I' which of course only became known as that when the Mk 2 came out, it was, I believe, a Jaguar 3.4 litre Coupe, which is what I was looking for.  The 'site where I found it actually described it as a 3.5 litre but since Jaguar didn't have such an engine they must mean a 3.4

So you're near enough and we'll call it solved; everyone was pretty close but you were the first anyway.
Nice car!

[Allan L]

 The 'site where I found it actually described it as a 3.5 litre but since Jaguar didn't have such an engine they must mean a 3.4

That's just the way they referred to the engine at the Jaguar since, as it was 3,442cc, anyone else would have called it 3½ litre.
Similarly the 2.4 litre at 2483cc would be a 2½ litre anywhere else.
Probably originates in a desire to distinguish the engines from the 2½ and 3½ litre SS pushrod engines (which were 2,663 and 3,485 cc).
Don't let's get involved in the 1½ litre Jaguar (1,776cc) or the 1½ litre MG VA (1,548cc) and 2 litre SA (2,288cc).
I think one can say that displacement is fact and model name is policy

[72Must]

May or may not be of interest...!
Spotted the puzzle pic labelled as '56 3.5 L on a 'site that had the Bertone XJ 40 concept (another recent puzzle) labelled as an '82 XK  40 prototype ,so wondered about how accurate it was !
The information in my earlier post came from Anders Clausager's book on the XK140 , he was chief archivist at JDHT at the time.
Presumably he had access to many images & much  information in the archives.
It has the puzzle rear shot + the front shot that has also been posted + a side view of a cabrio version.

I think the narrow  "grooved" front bumpers ( very like the xk 120 items ) are unusual & would have been a rather retrograde step for  '56.

[Carnut]

Interesting, and you're possibly right about the date which might be a year or two earlier than 1956, although maybe not as the Mk 1 came out in 1956 I believe and suppose it was after that was on the market that they would start looking at other variations.
I don't think it's enough of a proper sports car to be seen as a replacement for the XK series, more a 2-door coupe version of the 2.4/3.4 saloon I would say.

[D-type]

These two photos plus a side view of a soft top version appear in Philip Porter's  Jaguar the Complete Illustrated History.  He captions the three pictures as

Three fascinating views of a styling exercise in open and closed form. Produced probably in the mid-1950s, it may have been intended as an XK140 replacement,instead of the XK150.  In it can be seenthe small saloon [ie the Mk1/Mk2], the XKs and even a hint of the XJC.  It was a very stylish car, aided in appearance by the lack of sidelights, number plates etc,  Note the XK120 front bumpers.

If an expert on the marque like Philip Porter states in print that he is unsure what it is, I suspect that nobody knows and that any information on web sites is somewhat suspect.

[bentleybob]

I have learned over the years never to trust on face value any information, and most certainly not those of the 'great' experts, in print nor internet. They are only human, and everyone gets is wrong sometimes.