At 3am on 8 August 1963, a Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train approached Sears Crossing in Buckinghamshire.
The signal ahead turned red.
But there was nothing wrong with the railway.
A gang of 15 men had tampered with the signalling system and covered the real green light, forcing the train to stop. Driver Jack Mills was attacked, most of the train was uncoupled, and the valuable mail carriage was moved forward towards Bridego Bridge.
Waiting below were the robbers.
Within roughly half an hour, they formed a human chain and removed 120 mailbags containing around £2.6 million — an extraordinary sum at the time. The gang then disappeared towards their hideout at Leatherslade Farm.
It became the Great Train Robbery, one of the most famous crimes in British history.
And sitting somewhere in its mythology was another British icon.
The Jaguar MkII.
Why the Jaguar?
The Jaguar wasn't simply chosen because it looked good.
To London's criminal underworld, it was almost purpose-built.
Great Train Robbery mastermind Bruce Reynolds later wrote about the attraction of Jaguars to professional criminals. His description was beautifully simple: Jaguar offered “Pace and Space.”
That was exactly what a getaway driver needed.
The top 3.8-litre MkII produced 220bhp and could reach around 125mph — extraordinary performance for a four-door saloon in the early 1960s. It also had powerful disc brakes, room for several people and enough refinement to blend into normal traffic.
It could look perfectly respectable outside a hotel.
And several minutes later be disappearing down an A-road at speeds most family cars couldn't get close to.
Reynolds remembered the 3.4-litre Jaguar arriving and becoming an instant favourite of the criminal fraternity:
those who could afford one bought one — those who couldn't stole one.
Ten Jaguars for one robbery
The MkII's connection with the Great Train Robbery becomes even more interesting when you hear what Reynolds originally considered.
He later revealed that the gang had discussed using ten Jaguar MkIIs as part of their escape plan.
The idea was to exploit exactly what made the Jaguar such a formidable criminal tool: speed, passenger space and the ability to cover ground extremely quickly.
The plan was eventually rejected. Why?
Because ten Jaguars sitting together in a quiet country lane might have attracted slightly too much attention.
The gang ultimately used heavier vehicles to move the huge quantity of cash from the train, but Jaguar itself records a MkII as having been used as a getaway car connected with the 1963 robbery.
The association stuck.
The police had a problem
By this point the MkII's abilities weren't exactly a secret.
Stolen Jaguars had already started appearing in bank robberies during the early 1960s.
Hagerty notes that in the hands of a skilled getaway driver, contemporary police Wolseleys could struggle to stay with one.
So the police came to a rather logical conclusion.
If you can't catch a Jaguar MkII, buy a Jaguar MkII.
The Metropolitan Police and other British forces began putting fast Jaguars into service.
There was another reason too. Britain's motorway network was expanding rapidly, with new sections of roads such as the M1 and M6 creating a new requirement for police cars capable of sustained high-speed work.
Jaguar later cited historian Nigel Thorley's estimate that, at one stage, around 80% of English police districts had at least one Jaguar saloon in their fleet.
For a brief period, Britain had created an extraordinary situation: the getaway driver and the officer chasing him could effectively be driving the same car.
From getaway car to British crime icon
The MkII eventually became bigger than the crimes themselves.
Its reputation followed it onto television and cinema screens.
It became visual shorthand for the slightly darker side of 1960s Britain — appearing in or inspiring the automotive atmosphere of films such as Robbery, Get Carter and later British crime productions.
Then television gave it another identity entirely when a red MkII became inseparable from Inspector Morse.
Elegant enough for a gentleman.
Fast enough for a racing driver.
Practical enough for the police.
And quick enough for some of Britain's most notorious criminals.
Few cars have ever occupied both sides of the law quite like the Jaguar MkII.
Perhaps that's why, more than sixty years later, it still carries just a little bit of menace.
