Understanding the XJ-S
WHEN I joined Jaguar in the mid-Seventies I was surprised to discover it was Malcolm Sayer who had initiated the XJ-S’s design since as a large grand tourer, it was a very different car from his most famous, the E-type.
But after time I started to understand the context in which the car was designed and context is always important. Part of that was something most people don’t think about which was the influence of the American market, California in particular, where most of its cars were sold. As the former president of Jaguar North America, Mike Dale, used to say, America was Jaguar’s home market since it was its biggest.
After the XJ-S had originally been conceived in the late Sixties, California had pending legislation that, if it had gone through, would have put an end to convertibles. Since California’s economy was bigger than Britain’s at the time, the state had serious clout over all European car manufacturers, Jaguar especially.
That explained why when the XJ-S was launched in 1975 it was a coupe only but it wasn’t until some years later that I discovered the reason behind one of its most recognisable design features.
AT THE TIME JAGUAR WAS REALLY UNSENTIMENTAL ABOUT ITS HISTORY AND HAD LITTLE NOSTALGIA
In the early Eighties I found in a skip outside the Browns Lane studio a 1/10th scale model of a sports car, pictured above in the Sixties. Incredible to think now but at the time Jaguar was really unsentimental about its history and had little nostalgia.
I eventually learned the model was Sayer’s original concept for the car that eventually became the XJ-S. Mid-engined – which was fashionable at the time – it explained the eventual production car’s famous buttresses. You can see aerodynamically why they’re there, how they’re going to work.
But when I looked closer at th
