BALANCE & POISE

Having by now appreciated the Coombs Mk2 on both major and minor roads of varying states of repair, our chief impression is that the ride quality is nothing sort of phenomenal. Period road-testers praised Jaguar’s mechanics for the way in which the Mk2 offered appreciable firmness for press-on driving without compromising comfort on less-than perfect roads. The Coombs Mk2 shares this trait, while simultaneously feeling tauter in the corners.

The standard independent front suspension comprises wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers and an anti-roll bar, while out back there’s a Panhard rod with dampers, radius arms and semielliptic springs. Coombs revised this set-up with a more robust anti-roll bar, high-rate front springs and adjustable dampers all-round.

Tim adds: ‘ This car had the uprated Armstrong dampers on originally. Unfortunately, they were beyond repair when we restored it so we put Konis on instead, which are a very good modern version.’ CMC has also uprated the anti-roll bar.

Those aforementioned parachute harnesses keep you pinned in place, but 38 BUY corners cleanly and flatly regardless. So too, the Mk2’s wider track (compared to the earlier MkI) ensure that it feels planted – we never felt like we were in danger of provoking a slide.

Another grumble with the standard Mk2 steering box is that it is too high-geared – there are occasions when it can feel slow to respond when the car is being driven with gusto. To address this, Coombs offered a high-ratio steering box that reduced the number of turns from lock-to-lock from five to three and a half. 38 BUY’s power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering is a tad light, but still incredibly communicative and the current owner has wisely retained the original Coombs box should its next custodian wish to refit it.