It is a full four door, four seater car and despite being over 40 years old can still keep pace with modern traffic and is an excellent drive.
Although it was built before seat belts were fitted as standard, we have fitted inertia reel seat belts both front and rear to keep you safe in your seats. It is also fitted with modern radial tyres to keep it safely on the road.  

Shortly after taking over the Daimler Company, Jaguar made a Daimler version on the Mk2 using the same body and very similar interior, but swapping the engine for the Daimler V8 2.5 litre engine.  This engine is less powerful than the 3.4 or 3.8 litre Jaguar XK engines but more powerful and much smoother than the 2.4 litre version.  Most of the Daimler V8s were fitted with automatic gearboxes and power steering, being the luxury end of the product range. These cars are rarer than the Jaguars but are generally regarded as being inferior and therefore are cheaper to buy than a Mk2, but being automatic and having power steering, tend to be easier to drive.

In a TV News poll published on 27 July 2004, the Jaguar MkII beat all of James Bond's Aston Martins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Italian Job's Mini Coopers in a poll to mark the launch of the Post Office's new motor insurance.  When deciding which car they would prefer to drive, people over the age of 50 picked Inspector Morse's Jaguar MkII, while those in their 20s went for the faster Aston Martin V12 from Bond film Die Another Day.  So whether you fancy playing the part of a 1960s villain, or Inspector Morse, you will be both comfortable and safe.

One of the latest 'fashionable' controls on modern cars is a separate start button.  The justification is that now, instead of a key the car can be unlocked using a key card which can stay in your pocket.  So the electrics all come on as soon as you sit in the car and you just press Start.  Isn't this a truly wonderful innovation? 

Not when you consider that our 1961 Mark II Jaguar has a Start Button.  OK it doesn't have the electronics to read a key card in your pocket but a Start Button is nothing new.  So if you want one of the latest gizmos then hire our Mark II and just press Start.

At The Open Road we put a lot of time, effort and money in making sure that our cars are up to the standard that we, and our customers require when hiring a classic car.  Many years ago a friend of mine with a Daimler SP250 (Dart) sports car had it restored and added that it would need restoring again every 10 years.  He wasn't wrong and now that our fleet varies between 9 and 10 cars, this means that each year we will probably re-paint one of our cars.  This year (2010) it is the turn of our Jaguar Mk2.

While it was generally pretty solid, over the past couple of years a few rust bubbles had started to appear in the base of the doors and the lead loading around the indicators in the top of the front wings had started to lift.  The chrome on two of the over-riders had also started to peel.  Our Mark2 has therefore spent most of January 2010 in the body-shop having the rust repaired and a fresh coat of paint.  The bumpers have been sent off for re-chroming.

To keep the interior at the same level as the refreshed exterior we had a  new set of interior panels made up and these will shortly be fitted together with the re-varnished woodwork.

The period radio that was installed predated VHF and was mono, so was next to useless.  So in a token nod to modernity we have fitted a modern radio complete with CD player, MP3 and USB sockets. 

For Inspector Morse fans we include copies of two small books in the information pack that goes out with our Jaguar Mark2:  

The Oxford of Inspector Morse by Antony Richards and Philip Attwell. This book is the original guide to the various oxford locations most associated with the books and television productions of Inspector Lewis. You will need to park up somewhere suitable and use the book as a guide for a walking tour.

Inspector Morse on Location by Antony Richards. This book gives details of over 60 locations that are most associated with the television productions of Inspector Morse. This is a must if you fancy having lunch or a drink in one of the pubs used in the series. If you want to buy copies of these books, then we can supply them at £12.00 for the pair, including p&p.

For daily, weekend and weekly hire rates for all of our cars, see the section on Hire Charges.