As fans of the hit television series "Mad Men" are aware, Jaguar figures prominently in the story line. In season 5, the ad firm Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce is locked in competition with other Madison Avenue ad firms for the Jaguar North American advertising business. The courtly British partner in SCDP, Lane Pryce, has a personal friend who is a senior executive at Jaguar, which gives SCDP an entre to pitch for Jaguar's advertising business. After a heated competition in which several Madison Ave. firms pitch ad campaigns to Jaguar, SCDP is ultimately selected to handle the business. In several episodes of season 5, characters make denigrating remarks about Jaguar cars. In particular, the reliability of Jaguar cars is impugned. For example, the car is compared to a "mistress" who is beautiful and desirable, but lacks a wife's steady reliability. Roger Sterling states flatly that "Jaguars never start." It seems to be the prevailing view among "Mad Men" characters that Jaguars are not suitable as a man's main car, because of their unreliability. In one pivotal scene, Lane Pryce, who was caught embezzling money from SCDP, attempts to commit suicide by running a hose from the tailpipe of his new Jaguar XKE through the window of the car. He makes several attempts to start the car, but it won't start. He then aborts his attempt to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, and he opts instead to hang himself.

"Mad Men" attempts to portray the popular culture and milieu of Madison Avenue, as well as the broader cultural landscape in the US during the early 1960s--a time of great social ferment and change. I think the tv series does a decent job in its representation of the social, cultural and sexual mores of the Madison Avenue advertising community, as well as corporate executives, and others in the wider population. I can confirm that many of the cultural references in the tv series, such as popular music, clothing styles, consumer products, and geopolitical events such as the Cuban missile crisis, etc. are portrayed quite accurately. I am unable to confirm if Jaguar cars during the period of the early 1960s in the U.S. were generally regarded as unsuitable for use as a man's primary vehicle due to their unreliability. I welcome input from anyone who can offer insight into the question of the reliability (or lack thereof) of Jaguars of early 1960s vintage, and whether Jaguar cars had a reputation for being unreliable at the time.

Video Clip from "Mad Men":
Link to website: https://dondrapersmoney.tumblr.com/p...-to-the-jaguar

 

Yes indeed, in our neck of the woods back in the 1960s / 1970s / 1980s, the Jaguar marque was generally viewed as gorgeous but unreliable. The typical joke I remember was that if you purchased a Jaguar, you also needed to hire a tow truck to follow you around....

 

I thread about Mad Men is probably enough, I've merged the two threads in the North East section and moved them to Off Topic so any further comments can go there.
I'm going to close this one.