The first encounter

A year before buying my MkII I didn't know what this beautiful type of car was called. Growing up in Volvo-rich but Jaguar-poor Sweden, I had not been exposed to this impressive part of the automotive history. The only British car experience I had was partly restoring an Austin Healey Sprite MkII before giving it to my younger brother who still hasn't finished the restoration I started almost 15 years ago. I had also watched my father restoring one Austin A30 sedan and one A30 countryman van.

After moving to Sydney, Australia I began to see the occasional MkII in traffic. Sydney's crawling peak hour traffic gives you a lot of time to study the surrounding cars. It was love at first sight. I found out the model name of these cars through looking at the pictures in the classified ads. The leaping cat had already made me realize that it was a Jaguar. To learn more about this fascinating breed of cars I bought Nigel Thorley's excellent book "Jaguar Mk I/II".
By now I knew that I had to have one of these cars.

Shortly afterwards I saw a 1962 Mk II 3.8 liter automatic with wire wheels for sale in the classifieds. I called the vendor who told me that it had been standing in a garage for 13 years so it would need a new headlining and brakes. It also turned out that he was located in the beautiful highlands south of Sydney where he also operated a Bed & Breakfast. It was easy to get my wife to come along on a romantic weekend which also happened to involve having a look at an old car.
The Mk II turned out to be in a very good condition optically. These pictures show how the car had been resting for the past 13 years, except that it used to be sitting on blocks to protect the new (unused) tires.

How could I turn down a stunner like this, especially since my wife liked it too? So I ended up buying the first Jaguar I ever saw up close. Little did I know what lay ahead of me...

The first objective now was to get a roadworthy certificate so I could start driving it, as it looked good enough to drive around in. The seats and carpets were like new, the chrome good and the paint only had a few scratches. I knew I had to fix rust on the front left jack point, get the brakes fixed and the cylinder head changed as it was leaking water. As I was living in a unit without even undercover parking I decided to let a well recommended Jaguar mechanic bring the car up to a roadworthy condition.

After Graeme had fixed the brakes and front suspension it was time to move onto the leaking cylinder head.

It turned out to be cracked and corroded beyond repair. Most of the aluminum casings were in the same condition. The cam shaft and the timing gear needed replacement as well. So I was faced with a very expensive engine restoration which would blow my budget completely. Instead we decided to move to a townhouse with a double garage so that I could do most of the remaining work myself.

I suppose that it was a clear sign that I had caught the incurable Jaguar bug when I let the car control where to live.