Very true the 420 was and still is a very unappreciated Jaguar. Someone said that the tail of the S type was an "Abomination of a design" then they took away all the curves from the front of the S Type and slapped a flat ugly front on it to make the 420. Not a pretty car what so ever.
I personally think the tail of the S Type is a great design that compliments the curves of the front by drawing out the length of the tail. At least when you looked at the front it still had the cats paw design that Jaguars had shown for the previous twenty odd years but the 420 lost that sleek curved look and hence it became unappreciated.
Just my view point.

 

Agreed. The 420 also suffered from arriving so close to the XJ6. It's a case of the very good overshadowed by an all time great.

What's interesting is that you can see the incremental steps from the Mk1 through the intermediate models to the XJ. Yet, the XJ is so different from the original 2.4 litre.

 

The 4.2 engine finds little favour with me with it's endless block cracking issues.

Read from post #8 here.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/m...4-3-8s-237260/



.

 

Cars are not designed to last for ever. We are a very small minority of people that enjoy old classics and should not expect cars or their component parts to be still running 40 plus years!
I have a seies 2 with cracked block. I have changed it to a later 4.2 slotted block!

 

Actually, It was the long stud engines that mostly cracked, the earlier 4.2s were OK, I believe. Of course it had to have cracks in my 8l block on my 1980 XJ6 !!
I was told by a chap that made his living rebuilding XK engines, that 7/10 7L blocks cracked and 8/10 of the 8L blocks, but this was before the slotted 8L blocks.

 

Article:
https://www.jagtas.org.au/torque/tec...-engine-block/

Yes ~ your informative post is #9 in the link I provided above.

Namely quote
"I can confirm the truth in that article, as I had a cracked block back in the late 80s with a 1980 XJ6 I had bought. (the quality of this 8 year-old car was also appalling as I found out later). I believe the article was written by a chap I met to buy a bootlid from and during the conversation asked had I had HGF problems. He got me out of my HGF problem by selling me an uncracked 7L block with pistons for £100. His business was rebuilding XK engines and he told me that, on average, 7 out of 10 7L blocks were cracked when he stripped the engine down, and 8 out of 10 8L blocks. Only when the slotted block was introduced was some increase in head gasket life delivered, but as explained in the article, not even this gave a long life with failure in the 80-90k miles range. Of course the head studs going through the coolant was not ideal, but OK if the owner is meticulous about replacing the anti-freeze. This is not because it ceases to provide frost protection, but because the corrosion inhibitors included in it, lose effectiveness. Modern OAT antifreezes last much longer, of course. Note that the V12 engine also has the head studs in the coolant as well.

The good news is that a 1972 engine may not be affected, even if it's a 7L block because the trouble was linked to various bad practices in the Jaguar machine shop in the 70s. Iron castings would normally be "weathered" for many weeks to allow stresses in the casting to work themselves out, but under "new management", this was speeded up to cut costs, and blocks machined within days of casting with the results we see today. The lipped liner modification is best, but expensive. From what jhemp has told us he just hasn't got the money to pay for expensive jobs, in fact I would think trying to run a Jaguar on a shoe string is heroic, but not really achievable with a car that old." unquote. ~ Fraser Mitchell