In the last installment of Car Throttle’s Project Mud-Type series, Alex Kersten and his crew started making major changes to the build’s Jaguar X-Type foundation. They toiled and tinkered to give the British four-door a custom 70-millimeter (2.76-inch) lift for more ground clearance, and added a straight-pipe exhaust system to make the 2.5-liter V6 sound its best.

This cat just got some bigger claws.

In this episode, it’s time to fill the space freed up by the lift with bigger, off-road tires and add cargo capacity up top by installing a custom-made steel roof rack. Kersten has some aftermarket steel wheels on the way, but in the meantime, he has a shop wrap a set of 235/70/16 Goodyear Wranglers around the X-Type’s stock 16-inch wheels. Their substantial tread blocks eat up wheel well space quickly, so Kersten has to make some alterations to the X-Type to fit them.

One of those changes is completely reversible; Kersten slaps on 25-millimeter spacers at all four corners, reducing the chance of the tires rubbing against anything hot or sharp. Amazingly, the chunky rubber clears the front springs. The other change is permanent. Those meaty tires need as much room as they can get to spin and turn from lock to lock, which means Kersten has to cut metal from the fenders and bang what’s left into shape.

No rubbing means lots of cutting.

As Kersten and one of his colleagues stuff the upsized rubber into Project Mud-Type (now known as Floyd), a welder gets to work creating a custom roof rack for it. He chooses 25-millimeter box section steel for its main structure and 20-millimeter galvanized conduit for its walls. Once he has the frame pieces cut and put in place, he tack welds them together. Then he bends the conduit to form the rack’s top rails. Before he runs out of gas, he almost finishes welding on the pedestals that will connect the rack to Floyd’s roof.

Kersten and his squad also do some work under the hood. If Floyd is going to take on extreme off-road conditions, he needs a snorkel to keep his engine from getting flooded by a deep stream. The problem is that the X-Type’s fuse box makes routing problematic. The boys eventually figure out a solution.

Creating an opening for the air hose to exit through is easier and gives Kersten a perfect excuse to drill holes into the front driver’s-side fender. To make sure the metal body work doesn’t cut into the hose, one of Kersten’s colleagues covers the edges of the hole with flexible tubing.

It might not look right in front of a Nordstrom, but it’ll look perfect at the top of a rocky trail.

When Kersten and his pals are done for the day, Floyd looks like a Mad Max badass. He sits higher on aggressive tires and is ready for adventure. The Jaguar is slowly turning into a mountain lion. Plus, its straight-pipe exhaust sounds mean and angry.

Floyd’s tires and lift haven’t been tested in the wild, though. Not yet. I haven’t seen the next episode, but I have a feeling Car Throttle‘s unusual X-Type won’t get stuck the next time it takes a mud bath.