TWIN TEST
These two chairmans’ carriages offered what their
manufacturer felt was the perfect blend of comfort and
technology, but achieved their aims in different ways
IF YOU’RE over six feet tall, you’ll know that there are certain things in life that might be very pretty, but aren’t very practical. Low, beamed ceilings for instance. Chandeliers. And the back seat of a Jaguar XJ40 or X300. For cars that are comfortably in excess of 16 feet in length, neither the XJ40 nor its facelifted successor was exactly palatial in the back – with taller passengers forced to wedge their knees in the seats and their heads in the headlining or to squat, splay legged, in order to maintain basic space.
It was clear in 1992 when Jaguar ceased production of the Daimler DS420 that while coachbuilders could happily build hearses based upon the XJ40, provincial mayors and the like would find Jaguar’s alternative choice of upmarket saloon a little too tight to be used for formal occasions. So the former Limousine shop was repurposed as Special Vehicle Operations – and its first project was to develop a longer XJ40.
That car would be announced at the 1992 British International Motor Show, held at the NEC in Jaguar’s Midlands home turf. As with the standard wheelbase the car attracted two project codes – the stretched version of the XJ81 V12 was the XJ82, and the stretched XJ40 six cylinder became XJ83.
Badged the Majestic, it had nothing to do with the American market Jaguar Majestic of 1989-92 – rather more in common with the Daimler Majestics of the past. The cars began as standard XJ40 shells, part-finished and supplied to Project Aerospace in Coventry. Here they would be elongated by five inches, and the rear of the roof would be raised by two inches. B-posts, rear doors and the roof were all unique to the car, along with the rear screen – more vertical than the standard saloon and larger to boot. Once the shells were completed, they were delivered to SVO to be built into completed cars.
The cost of this service was £8500 over the standard list price, and the treatment could be applied to anything from an XJ6 manual with wheel trims right through to a Daimler Double Six. It’s not believed, however, that any Majestics were built to XJR or S specification. It’s believed that 270 Majestics were built in total – the majority of which bore Sovereign and Daimler badges. Early reports suggested that these would be all Jaguar would offer, though our test car will soon prove otherwise. Su
