HISTORY
Serve & protect
The 1997 X300-generation XJ6 4.0 was bulletproof armour plus full police equipment to be used by former British home secretary, Jack Straw. Although now in private hands the car remains fully equipped and we've driven it
A BRAHAM LINCOLN might have said, “The ballot is stronger than the bullet,” but by being disliked by at least 49 percent of the country (and in more recent cases, the entire world), politics can be a dangerous profession, especially when you’re the one in power It’s why the President of the United States is chauffeured in a ten ton, 18-foot, bulletproof leviathan called ‘The Beast’.
Senior politicians on this side of the pond might also need protection but usually prefer subtlety over size. Take this Jaguar XJ6 that was once used by a senior member of the last Labour government; it might appear to be a standard saloon but it actually offers similar levels of protection as The Beast but without drawing so much attention to itself.
The car, a long wheelbase 4.0, started life as a standard model that left the Browns Lane factory in mid-to-late 1997, making it one of the final X300s before the model was replaced by the X308.
It was ordered by the British Home Office for the then new home secretary, Jack Straw. It’s not known why an XJ8 wasn’t chosen; was it just timing? Or was discount the government procurement department no doubt secured for a soon to be replaced car deemed more important?
Due to the increased terrorist threat to the UK at the time it was decided to make the limousines of leading cabinet ministers bulletproof and so the Jaguar was transported to S MacNeillie & Son located in Walsall, West Midlands, a specialist in police and emergency vehicles.
To protect occupants from an attack, it was given inch-thick, bulletproof glass plus Kevlar panels in the doors and titanium on the roof. Extra sheets of steel were placed in the floor to counteract bomb blasts.
Since it would be operated by Protection Command within the Metropolitan Police Service, the Jaguar was given full emergency equipment which included two blue lights situated behind the grille plus one in the front screen, a siren, loudspeaker and in the boot there was a two-way transceiver that featured a Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System (CTCSS) unit to stop any unwanted listeners to the car’s radio transmissions.
Due to these additions, the car weighed 2,550kg, 750kg more than a standard 4.0 LWB, meaning bespoke and beefier springs had to be fitted. Yet despite the extra weight, the 237bhp four-litre straight-six was left untouched.
The XJ6 was finally registered on 21 October 1997, when it entered service with the Home Office. Images of Jack Straw during the early years
