One of the two key players concerned with the design of the V12 engine first used in the SIII E-type was Harry Mundy. The other was, of course, Walter Hassan. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity of meeting him but I did have occasion to encounter Mundy, having in 1976 spent a lunch time at Browns Lane in his company.

This gathering at the Jaguar factory 30 years ago was arranged by the firm’s outstanding publicity manager, the late Andrew Whyte. It took place in the shadow of the government’s Ryder Report which was to all but annihilate Jaguar. Andrew, with his historical hat also firmly in place, had invited a small group of us to dine, his intention no doubt being to raise the company’s increasingly tarnished profile.

Our host was Peter Craig, plant director, who sadly was to die suddenly in February of the following year, and Harry Mundy, still on the Jaguar payroll, was present in his capacity as Deputy Chief Engineer (Power Units).

The other guests were the incisive and witty Ronald ‘Steady’ Barker, formerly of Autocar and then representing Car magazine, the charming but ‘slightly frayed’ Rodney Walkerley, one-time Grande Vitesse of The Motor, and Mrs George Lanchester, widow of one of the four Lanchester brothers, and present because Jaguar was custodian of the make through its purchase, in 1960, of Daimler.

I was there as a founder member of the staff of Classic Car magazine, then the only ‘classic’ title on the market, which had been established just three years previously. And its circulation was on the climb.

My recollection is of a pleasant gathering. Rodney in particular was outgoing, humorous and informative and a greater contrast with Mundy, who had been placed next to me at lunch, was difficult to imagine. Our conversation was peremptory to say the least. This was, in part, understandable because Steady Barker was sitting to his left, the two having been on the staff of Autocar at the same time, and they had plenty to talk about.

I had been looking forward to an encounter with this legendary engineer-cum technical journalist, Whyte having forewarned me of his presence, but I must confess to finding Harry Mundy brusque to the point of rudeness.

As it happened, I had travelled to Coventry by train and fortunately Andrew had to drive back to London that evening so he gave me a lift back to the capital. It completed what for me had been an immensely enjoyable occasion, my encounter with the Deputy Chief Engineer excepted.

When Harry Mundy joined Jaguar in March 1964, he brought with him a wealth of engineering expertise. Educated at King Henry VII public school in Coventry, he had served an apprenticeship with Alvis, leaving in 1936 to join the ERA concern at Bourne, Lincolnshire. It was then manufacturing Britain’s only competitive voiturette racer (equivalent to Formula Junior in the post war years).

Mundy became draughtsman to supercharger specialist, Murray Jamieson, who was responsible for much of the work on the ERA’s Riley-based engine. It was this discipline that he was to make his own.

At this time Mundy struck up what was to be a lifelong friendship with Walter Hassan, who had come to ERA via Bentley Motors, would later join what was then SS Cars as Chief Development Engineer and play a key role in the creation of the famous Jaguar XK engine.

From ERA Harry Mundy returned to Coventry and became senior designer at Morris Engines. After the war he became head of the design office at BRM, the spiritual successor to ERA, but left in 1950 at the suggestion of Wally Hassan, by then chief engineer of Coventry Climax Engines.

Mundy became his chief designer and, working in tandem, in 1954 they produced the successful FWA competition engine which was to prove its worth in small sports car racing.

Then in 1955 Mundy left Widdrington Road to become a journalist, joining what was then The Autocar, where he became the magazine’s first technical editor.

Jaguar in the meantime was going from strength to strength and in 1963 it acquired Coventry Climax which meant that Wally Hassan returned to the corporate fold and he wasted little time in recruiting Mundy to Browns Lane.

One of their priorities was to evaluate Jaguar’s experimental V12 engine, effectively two XK units mounted on a common crankcase with their attendant twin cam heads. But Hassan favoured a less complex, more compact and cheaper single cam/flat cylinder head and embarked on a complete re-design in which he was ably assisted by Harry Mundy.

The outcome in 1971 was the 5.3 litre alloy unit which was Europe’s first mass produced V12 (the world’s first was the US-built Lincoln Zephyr unit of 1936/48) and Mundy remained with Jaguar until 1980, continuing as a consultant after his retirement. He died in 1988 at the age of 75.

So much for biography. Some time after that Browns Lane lunch, I found myself in conversation with racing historian par excellence Doug Nye. Before long the subject of Harry Mundy came up and Doug suggested that if I wanted a real insight to the engineer, I should read the technical articles he wrote during his years with Autocar.

On my return home I reached for my bound volumes and found Doug’s judgement to be absolutely correct. Mundy’s words are a model of technical writing, reflecting as might be expected a great depth of knowledge but, above all, they possess a clarity which the many non-engineers for whom he was writing could easily comprehend.

So Harry Mundy should be judged, not for his peppery personality, others I know had similar experiences to mine, but his immeasurable contribution to the turbine-like qualities of Jaguar’s V12 engine and the power of his pithy, pertinent prose.

NEW WHINE…

But why was the V12 first used in the E-type and not the XJ6 saloon for which it had been intended? As will emerge, there were a number of factors but as with many corporate decisions made at Browns Lane, this one was to a great extent driven by Jaguar’s all-important American market which took some 80 per cent of E-type production.

Like the XK unit that preceded it, the V12 would have had a dual function. It could have powered a sports racing Le Mans car and also be used in a road model. And as far as the configuration itself was concerned, with America wedded to the V8, it was felt that a V12 would have displayed a demonstrable superiority to the ubiquitous eight.

In truth the V12 enjoyed a lengthy gestation, but the sports racing element was sidelined and the decision to proceed with the Hassan/Mundy single cam unit was not taken until 1968, the very year of the XJ6’s introduction. It was then that chief engineer William Heynes proposed that it first be used in the E-type. There was, after all, the precedent of the XK 120 and Mark VII.

Also the sports car would be 10 years old in 1971 and, in truth, was beginning to show its years while the XJ-S, coded XJ27, which was also to have been the recipient of the engine, was running behind schedule.

The original plan was to offer the V12 in the E-type as an alternative to the six but the reality was that de-toxing the XK engine had reduced its output to 171bhp and the top speed had dropped dramatically. Road & Track only achieved a measly 119 mph when it tested a XK-E 4.2 FHC in 1969.

The Series III E-type was launched on March 25th 1971, exactly 10 years to the month since the original announcement at Geneva. The location, significantly, was a trans Atlantic one and Sir William Lyons was present at Palm Beach on his final visit to America before his retirement in 1972.

So reinvigorated, the E-type’s top speed leapt to 135 mph. This was faster than its immediate predecessor but the V12 was slower flat out than the SI on its introduction, yet quicker off the line. The SIII was destined to survive for some four years, it finally ceasing production in 1974.

By this time the V12 had been introduced as a supplementary power unit in the XJ6 saloon in 1972. It was to be carried over to the XJ-S, the original rendering, of 1975 and it survived until 1995. Paradoxically its replacement, the XK8, was powered by a V8 engine, the very configuration that Jaguar had rejected back in the 1960s!

INITIAL RESPONSE

Had you been in conversation with an old car enthusiast prior to that auspicious day at Geneva in March 1961 when Jaguar’s most famous model was launched, the ‘E-type’ name would have probably prompted a misty-eyed response. He, or she, would have thought you were referring to Vauxhall’s exquisite 30/98 sports car of 1913/22 vintage which was so designated. However, such was the impact of the E-type name that it has forever been allied with that of Jaguar, hard line vintagents excepted!

But why E? Well, obviously, because it followed the D-type but for its origins we need to return to the XK 120 of 1948. The famous initials were the factory designation for the twin cam six while the figure related to the car’s remarkable top speed. When the sports racing derivative appeared in 1951, it was internally designed XK 120C, the letter simply standing for Competition. And so the C-type was born.

D was unofficially arrived at as the next letter in the alphabet although the first five examples bore the XKC prefix, the cars being designated “XK 120C Series 1V”.

As far as the public was concerned, Harold Hastings, Midlands editor of The Motor, always claimed to have been the first journalist to refer to the D-type in print. However, following a run in prototype OKV 501 with Norman Dewis at MIRA, he made no mention of the name in his account published in the issue of June 2 1954. But his Le Mans report of June 16 does refer to “the new D-type” although the name is noticeably absent from The Autocar’s write-up of the event.

When in December 1956 work began on the road-going version of the D, it could only be a matter of time before the “2.4 litre two seater”, later the experimental E2A, became the E-type. But at the insistence of Jaguar’s American subsidiary it was marketed there as the XK-E, to emphasis its continuity with the XK line of sports cars.

BATTLE OF THE SIXES

In 1965 General Motors’ Pontiac Division introduced a new six cylinder overhead camshaft engine. This 230 cu in (3.8 litre) power unit, its ohc driven by a toothed rubber belt and valves actuated via hydraulic tappets, was first used in the Tempest and Le Mans sports coupés. All very interesting you might say but whatever has this got to do with the E-type?

Well, sacrilegious as it might sound, it seems that there were instances, well one recorded at least, of an XK-E owner replacing the XK engine with the newly minted Pontiac six.

The conversion of a 1963 S1 FHC was undertaken by Hurst Performance Products of Madison Heights, near Detroit and said vehicle was then tested by Car and Driver. In its issue of July 1966 it confrontationally declared: “Jaguar owners unite! You have nothing to loose but your timing chains!”

So how did it evaluate the conversion? Well, the latest product of GM technology was lighter, quieter but less powerful (207bhp) than the XK engine (a theoretical 265bhp). The latter had endowed the car with a top speed of 145mph, which was five mph faster than Pontiac’s performance.

However, GM’s slick ‘Munchie’ transmission was found to be infinitely superior to the Jaguar’s Moss gearbox with its absence of bottom gear synchromesh although by 1966 it had been replaced by the all-synchro unit.

C and D suggested that some of its readers might like to follow Hurst’s example. The conversion, they deemed, “while no job for the all-thumbs amateur, is well within the capabilities of any experienced hot-rodder”. Did any XK-E owners take up this challenge?

In the meantime the magazine had heard on the grapevine that Road & Track was contemplating the publication of a story relating to a Jaguar-engined Pontiac Tempest Sprint. Touche!

LAST WORDS

“I unhesitatingly nominate the E-type Jaguar as an outstanding example of the classic modern motor car, and a notable instance of how a planned motor racing programme can influence eventual production vehicles.” Gregor Grant in Autosport, August 21 1964.