Series 3

Series 3 ran from the end of 1970 to the middle of 1974. It is the shortest lived of the three series and the only one built in just two body styles. Where the earlier cars offered a two seat coupe, a roadster and a 2+2, the Series 3 offered a roadster and a 2+2 coupe, and nothing else.

What actually changed from Series 2

• The long floorpan for both body styles, and the deletion of the short wheelbase coupe.
• A wider track front and rear, which is why the wheel arches are flared.
• Anti dive front suspension geometry, taken from the XJ6. This is new with the Series 3 and was not on the earlier cars.
• Ventilated front brake discs, and cooling air scoops added to the inboard rear brakes.
• Power assisted steering as standard, with a smaller, dished, leather rimmed steering wheel and more available lock.
• An enlarged bonnet mouth, with a chrome cross slatted grille fitted into it.
• Pressed steel wheels with hub caps as standard equipment, with wire wheels as an option.
• Four exhaust tailpipes in place of the twin round pipes of the six cylinder cars.

Track, and a figure that is often quoted wrongly

The Series 1 and Series 2 cars ran 50.0 inches of track front and rear. The Series 3 is wider at both ends, and the exact figures are disputed at the first decimal place. Published pairs include 54.4 front and 53.4 rear, 54.5 front and 53.0 rear, and 54.3 front and 53.0 rear. An independent cross check from a knowledgeable owner gives the increase as four and three eighths of an inch at the front and three and three eighths at the rear, which sits between the published pairs and is consistent with the first of them.

One error is worth naming, because it is repeated widely. A figure of 66.1 inches is often given as Series 3 track. It is not track. It is the overall width of the roadster.

The flared arches follow from the wider track and from wider rims, which went up to six inches, an inch wider than before. Period reporting at the launch put it the same way, that the wider track front and rear required wheel arch flares. There is also a practical reason that a specialist restorer raises: bonnet clearance on steering lock. The archive has not found a factory statement of that second reason and records it as a specialist observation.

Suspension, steering and brakes

The suspension layout is carried over. Motor Sport, reporting the launch in April 1971, wrote that the suspension is unchanged, being all independent by longitudinal torsion bars at the front and coil springs at the rear. What did change is the geometry: the same report records the anti dive front suspension geometry of the XJ6, presented as new on the car being described. The archive has found no source claiming anti dive geometry on any Series 1 or Series 2 E-Type.

Power assisted rack and pinion steering was standard on every Series 3, not an option. It is 3.5 turns lock to lock. That is worth pausing on, because the unassisted rack on the earlier cars was 2.75 turns, so the Series 3 rack is lower geared, not higher. Jaguar also made more lock available and fitted a smaller diameter dished wheel with a leather rim.

Brakes are discs all round, ventilated at the front, which is new for the Series 3, and solid and inboard at the rear either side of the differential as before. Cooling air scoops for the rear brakes were added at the same time. One published buying guide gives 11.2 inch ventilated fronts and 10.4 inch solid rears with servo, and the archive has not found a second independent source for those diameters, so treat them as unconfirmed.

On the calipers, a restorer who works on these cars describes the front caliper as the same two piece unit as the Series 2, with spacers of about half an inch where the halves bolt together to straddle the thicker ventilated disc. The archive has not established the caliper manufacturer and type designation, and has not established whether the braking system is dual circuit.

One practical consequence of the inboard rear brakes, which applies to every E-Type but bites hardest on cars that stand: the rear brakes and handbrake seize and the discs rust, and getting at them means removing the rear subframe.

Wheels and tyres, stated the right way round

This is regularly written backwards. On the Series 3, pressed steel wheels with chrome hub caps were the standard fitment and wire wheels were the option. Chromed steel wheels were a further option. The steel wheel is sometimes called the Turbo Disc wheel, adopted from the XJ12, and one account attributes its use to improved brake cooling.

Rims are 15 by 6K. The original tyre was the Dunlop E70VR15, which the January 1972 road test car wore, and a specialist tyre supplier lists the period fitment at 30psi front and rear. The exact Dunlop model name as applied at the factory is not established, because sources render it variously as E70VR15, ER70VR15, SP Sport and Aquajet.

The front frame is not the same as a six cylinder car

This matters to anyone buying structural panels. Martin Robey, who manufacture E-Type structural sections, list a third and Series 3 specific picture frame crossmember, MRE92B, distinct from MRE92 for Series 1 and MRE92A for Series 2. They also list Series 3 specific engine side frames and a Series 3 specific bonnet support frame.

So the front frame is demonstrably a different part. How it differs, whether in width, in section, in mounting point position or in all three, is not established, because Martin Robey do not publish the corresponding Jaguar part number for MRE92B. Lower tier accounts describe the subframe as having been widened for the V12, which is plausible and consistent, but the archive has found no factory document confirming it. The Series 3 parts catalogues, RTC9014 for the roadster and RTC9015 for the 2+2, would settle it.

United States cars, and the bumper question

American federal bumper rules arrived exactly while the Series 3 was on sale. From the 1973 model year, bumpers had to protect safety related systems in a 5mph front and two and a half mph rear barrier impact. For 1974 that rose to 5mph front and rear from any angle.

The E-Type's response was staged. 1971 and 1972 cars have slim chrome bumpers with chrome overriders. 1973 cars gained large projecting rubber overriders at the front only. 1974 cars have them front and rear. American cars from 1972 also gained side indicator repeaters on the front wings.

The important qualification, because it is often described loosely, is that the E-Type never received a full width impact bumper of the kind fitted to other cars of the period. What it got was large rubber overriders bolted to the existing chrome bumper blades. That is why reverting a 1974 car is possible at all, by fitting 1971 to 1972 chrome overriders to the existing front mount plates and, at the rear, removing the structure and fitting an aluminium cover plate, Jaguar part C37349. Owners who have done it report it is harder and less reversible than it is usually made to sound.

The chassis numbers or build dates at which each bumper change took effect are not established.

Identification and numbering

Series 3 cars carry the 1S chassis prefix, in place of the Series 2's 1R. Engine numbers carry the 7S prefix and body numbers the 4S prefix. A BW suffix on the chassis number indicates a Borg Warner automatic gearbox, although for earlier series at least not every automatic car carried it.

The Heritage Trust gives the four Series 3 streams as follows.

• Open Two Seater, right hand drive: 1S/1001 to 1S/2872, first built February 1971, last June 1974
• Open Two Seater, left hand drive: 1S/20001 to 1S/26120, first built December 1970, last June 1974
• 2+2 fixed head coupe, right hand drive: 1S/50001 to 1S/52116, first built 1970, last August 1973
• 2+2 fixed head coupe, left hand drive: 1S/70001 to 1S/75183, first built 1970, last July 1973

Two things fall straight out of that table and both are useful. Series 3 production began in December 1970, several months before the public launch. And the 2+2 stopped in the summer of 1973, so every Series 3 built in 1974 is a roadster. A car described as a 1974 Series 3 2+2 deserves a careful look at its paperwork.

United States cars carry a U prefix followed by a model year letter, C for 1972, D for 1973 and E for 1974, giving UC, UD and UE. There is no letter for 1971, and whether 1971 American cars carried any prefix at all is not established.

On where the numbers are physically stamped, the archive is less confident than it would like to be, because no factory source has been consulted. The identification plate sits on the bulkhead structure at the top of the right hand footwell box, visible with the bonnet up, and carries car, engine, body and gearbox numbers. On the V12 the engine number is stamped in the vee between the heads at the rear, which is not where it is on the six cylinder cars. The body number is on a tag riveted to the body behind the rear number plate. The gearbox number location for a Series 3 is not established. Note also that reproduction data plates are in circulation, so a crisp plate is not evidence of anything by itself.

Interior and equipment

The Series 3 uses the Series 2 fascia architecture, a black centre panel with rocker switches rather than the wood and toggles of the early cars. Beyond that, the archive has not been able to source a reliable account of exactly what changed on the dashboard between Series 2 and Series 3, and would rather say so than guess. If you see a Series 3 with a walnut veneer dashboard, treat it as a later addition unless it comes with documentation.

Upholstery is leather or vinyl. Period trim charts give carpets in black, cherokee red, biscuit and beige, leather in black, biscuit, old beige and old red, and coupe headlinings in beige, nimbus grey, dark grey and fawn. The roadster hood was vinyl from the factory, so a mohair hood, which is what most cars now wear, is a departure from original specification and does not always fold as well.

Standard equipment included power steering, servo assisted ventilated front brakes and pressed steel wheels. Options included automatic transmission, wire wheels, chromed steel wheels, air conditioning and a detachable hardtop for the roadster. The Series 3 was the only open E-Type offered with an automatic gearbox, which is a useful identification point in itself.

On air conditioning there is a market distinction that general sources miss. Air conditioning systems were factory fitted rather than dealer installed, and on the evidence available they went to left hand drive cars. One detailed owner account states that Jaguar never supplied a system for right hand drive Series 3 cars. Whether any right hand drive car left the factory with it is not established, so the flat statement that air conditioning was optional on the Series 3 is misleading for a home market car.

Where they rust

Everything that rots on an E-Type rots on a Series 3: rear wheel arches, the sill to floor joint, sills and end plates, floors, door bottoms, the front engine framework and the bulkhead top panel, all of it commonly hidden under underseal and filler. Beyond that general picture, a few points are specific to this car or worse on it.

• The joint between the B post and the rocker on the roadster cracks. The factory leaded that seam and the lead frequently fails. A coupe roof trusses the shell, so coupe seams are not worked in the same way, and the Series 3 roadster is a nine inch longer open car, which means a longer unroofed structure working harder in torsion.
• The front corners of the rear wheel wells, where a wad of cotton fitted as sound deadening holds moisture against the panel.
• Roadster floors rusting through into the front of the rear wheel arch, which follows from wet floors.
• The lower front valances, where water draining from the headlamp scoops collects.
• The rear suspension pick up points and the rear subframe. A documented restoration of a 1973 V12 found rotted rear suspension pick up points alongside rusty floors and inner sills.

The archive has to be honest that none of the major published buying guides isolates a Series 3 only rust map, so the list above is assembled from restoration accounts rather than from a single authority.

What it actually did, measured

Jaguar claimed 150mph. That is a manufacturer claim, and the archive treats it as one. The only instrumented British test the archive has been able to read in full is Motor Sport's of January 1972, on a 2+2 coupe with the manual gearbox and a 3.07 axle, at a price of £3,387.

• Maximum in top: 143mph
• 0 to 100mph: 16.5 seconds
• Standing quarter mile: 14.5 seconds
• 80 to 100mph in top gear, without changing down: 7.0 seconds
• Maxima in the gears: 116mph in third, 84mph in second, 55mph in bottom
• Fuel consumption, measured: 16.4mpg, and nearly 17mpg over a 1,444 mile tour

Autocar tested the Series 3 twice, a 2+2 on 15 November 1971 and a roadster on 5 July 1973, and Road and Track and Car and Driver both covered the car. The archive has identified those tests but has not been able to obtain their figures, and will not reproduce performance numbers it has not seen in the original. The 0 to 60 figures in general circulation, usually quoted as under seven seconds, are not attributed to any test the archive can name.

How many were built, and when it stopped

Four different totals circulate: 15,287, 15,290, 15,291 and 15,292. The archive can shed some light on why.

Take the Heritage Trust chassis ranges and count them inclusively. 1S1001 to 1S2872 gives 1,872 cars. 1S20001 to 1S26120 gives 6,120. 1S50001 to 1S52116 gives 2,116. 1S70001 to 1S75183 gives 5,183. That sums to 15,291. The commonly repeated 15,287 is exactly four fewer, one fewer per model stream, which is the signature of subtracting the first number from the last without adding one. It appears to be an arithmetic artefact of the same data, not an independent count.

The larger point is that 15,287, 15,290 and 15,291 are all derived from number ranges rather than from build records, and a chassis range is an upper bound, because numbers can be skipped, reserved or voided. Motor Sport's period figure of 15,292, published in May 1975, is the only one that might come from a Jaguar production statement, and Motor Sport does not say where it got it. That same article is internally inconsistent by 62 cars in its own totals.

On when production stopped, the Heritage Trust says June 1974 for both roadster streams, and records the last car as built on 12 June 1974. Other accounts say the last E-Type was produced in the week ending 14 September 1974. The archive cannot reconcile these and will not pretend to. One possible explanation is that assembly of numbered cars ceased in June while line clearance continued into September, but that is a guess and is offered as one.

The date you will see most often, 1975, is not a production date at all. Two things happened in 1975. The discontinuation was not publicly announced until February 1975, because dealers still held stock. And the last car was first registered on 5 February 1975. The E-Type was built until 1974.

The last fifty

The Heritage Trust documents the following. The final fifty E-Types were produced in June 1974. Forty nine were painted black. The second to last car was British Racing Green. All fifty carried a commemorative plaque bearing a facsimile of Sir William Lyons's signature.

Motor Sport, writing in May 1975, adds that the forty nine black cars had chromium plated wheels, that the exception was chassis 1S 2871 finished in dark green at a customer's request, and that all fifty had special dashboard identification plaques with the final car's plaque worded differently because it was to be preserved. Prices at the end were £3,743 manual and £4,937 automatic.

The last car is chassis 1S/2872, an open two seater, black, four speed manual. Engine 7S17201, body 4S8989. Built 12 June 1974, registered HDU 555N on 5 February 1975, original price £3,742.83. Jaguar kept it from the day it was made, and it is in the Heritage Trust collection under inventory number 074/J.32, acquired in September 1983.

Several details that are repeated everywhere are not in either the Heritage Trust record or the period account: that the trim was cinnamon, that the plaque was bronze and fitted to the glovebox lid, that it carried the chassis number as well as the signature, and that thirty one of the fifty were manual. They may all be true. The archive simply cannot document them, and says so rather than passing them on as established. One claim, that the fifty came with matching detachable hardtops, is supported by only one source and contradicted by silence in all the others, and the archive regards it as probably wrong.

What can be said safely is that the run was 1S2823 to 1S2872, which is exactly fifty cars, that they fall inside the right hand drive roadster range, and that they were roadsters.

Common questions