HISTORY
We sample a 23,000-mile good-as-new XJ12C with a unique history and just four registered owners
A HE AGEING process is not gradual or gentle,” said the British author and barrister, John Mortimer, once. “It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing.”
This isn’t something that can be said about this 1978 XJ12C. Despite being 45 years old, the big coupe hasn’t aged a day, looking as good as when it left the Browns Lane assembly line. There are two reasons for this; an incredibly low mileage and spending over 20 years in storage.
The car, a UK-specification XJ12C in the ‘interesting’ combination of Yellow Gold exterior paint with a Floris Blue cloth interior was built in June 1977 and sold five months later through Jaguar’s official Worthing agent. The owner originally lived locally but a change of address in the original handbook – part of the original paperwork still with the car – shows he later moved to Norfolk.
According to a much later advert, the Jaguar stayed with the same owner’s family for the next 24 years. It’s not known if this is true since surviving registration documents showed between 1986 and 1999 the car lived in London and then Edinburgh until 2001. The next two keepers also had very different surnames from the first.
Due to the many surviving MoT certificates, what is known is that for most of its life the car was barely used and even by January 1984 had covered a mere 10,374 miles. Although a second MoT later that same year in December shows it had quickly risen to 17,598, the mileage soon tailed off again. Between 1987 and 2001 it covered a mere 2500 miles, occasionally covering less than 100 between annual MOTs.
Yet the handful of receipts for parts and servicing prove the car was still wellmaintained during this period.
Sometime in the early 2000s when the yellow Jaguar had under 23,500 miles on the clock it was up for sale through a Surrey-based classic car specialist who lent it to Thoroughbred & Classic Cars magazine for a twin test with a Ferrari 400i in the April 2001 issue. “Drive a good XJ12 and you’ll still marvel at the ride,” said the article. “So supple, so resilient, each wheel movement beautifully damped and isolated from the interior.”
The still highly original car next went to Holland when it was bought by enthusiast A M ‘Ton’ Knook, who once owned the biggest Land Rover dealership in the Netherlands. “My father bought the car for his collection,” Ton’s son, Rob, tells me. “He owned several very rare cars with a good history.”
Buying it largely for display rather than road use, Ton never bothered registering the Jaguar in the Netherlands. Yet by being kept in an air conditioned and heated garage, the car was again still well-looked after during this period.
When Ton passed away in
