Jaguar Mk10
This vast Jaguar saloon has led a cosseted life, thanks to the unusual habits of its eccentric first owner, and the care his family has lavished on it since
1964 - Malcolm Wills-wood buys his latest Jaguar
‘He’d had a Jaguar Mark IX beforehand, a white one, which he’d sold in order to buy a new Ford Zephyr Zodiac in 1963,’ says Mike Wills-wood of his father, Malcolm Sinclair Wills-wood. ‘It was the only time I can recall that he was without a Jaguar in his life. We always had two cars in the household. He’d bought the Zodiac because he felt he needed something more practical – but it wasn’t long before he wanted another Jaguar.’
On 13 January 1964, Malcolm part-exchanged the Zodiac, 927 GAX – less than a year old at the time – in order to get a considerable £900 off the price of his new £1785 Opalescent Maroon automatic Jaguar Mark 10 at Imperial Motors of Montpellier Spa Road, Cheltenham. To this he added the £18 heated rear windscreen option, a £15 underseal job, and his own personalised numberplate, MWW 192, retained for £5 and reproduced on silver satin numberplates for £3 3S.
‘He also joined the Jaguar Drivers’ Club – something that was offered when you bought the car from the dealership back then,’ says Mike. ‘All new members got a pack including an introductory letter signed by Sir William Lyons – he kept this with the car and, looking at the condition, I wonder if he ever got the paperwork out of its wallet – it’s all still like new, as is the service and lubrication chart, the intention of which was I suppose to hang up in the garage and do the maintenance on the car yourself. I don’t recall him going to any Jaguar Drivers’ Club events though, and he certainly didn’t do his own maintenence – he’d give it back to Imperial Motors for any work it needed.’
The Wills-wood family lived in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, and dentist Malcolm used his new Mark 10 to commute from the family home to his practice in Ebbw Vale, covering 25 miles a day. It wasn’t long before he ended up buying another Ford Zephyr though. ‘Mother didn’t work, so she used the Zephyr for local errand runs,’ recalls Mike. ‘From 1964 onwards we were never without at least one Jaguar, and a big Ford for more practical duties.’
Malcolm Wills was fanatical about maintaining his Mark 10’s condition. ‘He wouldn’t let his children even touch it,’ says Mike. ‘We had to ask permission just to sit inside it, and when we did get into it he’d always warn us to be careful when getting in and out, in case we knocked or scuffed anything.
‘He bought it because he just liked big, luxurious cars, fair enough I suppose, although it wasn’t the most obvious thing to do that particular commute in. It’s largely winding country lanes between Abergavenny and Ebbw Vale, and there would have been a lot of occasions where he’d find himself on a narrow road, hedgerows either side and something coming the other way, in a car that was six-foot wide!
‘He’d find himself on a narrow road, with hedgerows either side and something coming the other way, in a car that was six-foot wide!’
‘Very early on, in his first year of ownership, he took some precautions,’ says Mike. ‘He fitted a set of aftermarket wingmirrors he bought from the local motor factor – which are still on the car – not necessarily for overtaking or looking behind him, but rather to judge the width of the car when getting it in and out of garages. And in the garage at home he fitted a piece of carpet to the wall, mounted on wooden blocks, to rest the edge of the driver’s door against when getting in and out to avoid denting or scratching it.
‘But perhaps the most unusual thing he did was to rent a garage on the same street as the dental practice in Ebbw Vale, so he could always park the Jaguar indoors and away from other cars. So every day he’d take it out of one garage, drive it to another, then take it back at the end of the day. It must have cost him a fortune but he was a very strange man in many ways. But it showed in the car’s condition – it was always imacculate.
‘It wasn’t solely used for commuting though. Although we never went on holidays back then – my parents were very old-fashioned like that – he’d take us for days out in it, to places like Cheltenham and Hay-on-wye, anywhere where there were plenty of antiques dealers and secondhand bookshops. He’d scour these places for antiques to collect – books mainly, occasionally furniture. But despite the Mark 10’s boot being enormous enough to fit some of the items he’d bought into it, he’d never actually use it for that. He’d always get them delivered, not wanting to risk damaging the car getting things into it.
‘It was reflective of his personality in general really. He very much liked to own nice, luxurious things, and would frequently buy and surround himself with them, but never actually use them. The strangest was probably an extremely expensive Bang & Olufsen stereo system that I didn’t once see him ever play a record on.’
The Mark 10 fulfilled Malcolm’s daily commuting duties for four years and 22,000 miles. However, in 1968, something came along that eclipsed the old Mark 10. ‘In 1968, my father – and the entire motoring world so it seemed – fell in love with the new Jaguar XJ6,’ said Mike. ‘He went straight to Imperial Motors in Cheltenham – by this time bought-out by HA Saunders, and under new management – to part-exchange the Mark 10 and order this latest car, but they offered him such a small amount for it, just £200, that he didn’t feel it was worth parting with it.
‘Also, there was a very long wait for new XJ6S in 1968. In the end he continued to commute in the Mark 10 for another year or so before finding a year-old pre-owned example of an XJ6 – a G-registered 1968 car, a very early one – for sale.’ Malcolm transferred his personal MWW 192 numberplate to the XJ, re-registered the Mark 10 as 59 KAX, and confined it to his garage.
‘It did nothing at all for 40 years after that. It just sat there. Occasionally he’d go out, open the garage door and start it up, and run the engine up to temperature, just to prove to himself that it still worked really. He did that until the battery finally ran flat, then left it alone. He got it MOT tested in 1972, but looking at the test certificates shows that it hadn’t covered any miles since 1971. Once the battery was dead, he just started piling things on top of it.’
The Jaguar buying didn’t stop though. ‘At one point in the Seventies he had the Mark 10, the XJ6, an XJ12 and a new XJ-S,’ said Mike.
‘Every day he’d take it out of one garage, drive it to another, then take it back at the end of the day’
‘And true to form, he didn’t really drive them either – he just parked them on the drive and looked at them, he just liked to own them. In the end he sold the XJ12 and XJ-S, but he kept hold of the Mark 10 and the XJ6, with both confined to his double garage. The Mark 10 got wheeled out of the garage once in the early Nineties when some workmen needed access to the house, and held in place on the drive using a brick as a chock, but other than that it didn’t move.
‘In 2005, he had some more building work done on the house which necessitated moving the XJ6 this time. I went down to visit him, saw it sat on the drive and said “if you’re not using it, I’ll have it.” The XJ6 started first time, and only needed its fuel tanks cleaning and the rubber boots in the suspension replacing before it was useable again. It became my first classic.’
2010: A new start for the Wills-wood Mark 10
‘Dad died 11 years ago, and my mother had to sell the house and was going to get rid of the Mark 10,’ says Mike. ‘I was living in Poole in Dorset by this point, just down the road from Jaguar specialist Hollygrove. So I said “No, I’ll take it,” and went up to Abergavenny with a low-loader borrowed from Hollygrove.
‘I thought recomissioning the Mark 10 would be as easy as the XJ6 had been five years earlier, but it turned out to be a lot more complex. Hollygrove put oil in the engine but it ran straight out again, and I knew then that I had to spend a lot more money than the car was worth on getting it running. But it was my father’s car, and a labour of love. Hollygrove took the engine out and stripped it down. All the seals had perished, and the mechanical parts had seized through lack of use. There was nothing for it but a total rebuild.
‘Hollygrove had it for a year in the end. The petrol tanks had rusted through, so replacements were needed from a Daimler DS420 limousine. I was lucky in that sense – you can’t get a lot of Mark 10 replacement parts now, only really the ones it shares with the DS420 and the 3.8 E-type. Thankfully the bodywork was fine.
‘The restoration turned into a bit of a race against time, because my sons – twins – were finishing secondary school, and wanted to arrive at their leaver’s prom in it. Thankfully, Hollygrove’s restoration finished just in time, the week before. It was used as their limousine, I was their chauffeur and they and all their friends loved it! They both want to drive it now.
‘I use it for Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club events nowadays. I’m not really one for static shows, but JEC runs, pub meets and weekends away are great fun. I’ve parked it on the Lavant Bank at the Goodwood Revival a few times, taken it on what’s probably been its longest drive from Poole to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, and most memorably to Jaguar at Windsor Castle a few years ago, in convoy through the gates and down the Royal Mile.
‘Ultimately I’d like to take it touring through France, but there’s a difficulty. You see, because of the size of it, the ferry companies classify it as a van...’
‘I’ve taken it on what’s probably been its longest drive, from Poole to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire’