Paul’s XK8 enjoys plenty of use at the end of 2022 proving to his wife both its reliability and usefulness
IT’S THE last thing a man wants to hear, possibly more so than, “It’s my turn for the remote control,” or “I’m leaving you for your brother,” and definitely worse than, “Which one is Stars Wars again?”
“I think you should sell your XK8,” said my wife, Katy, out of the blue one day in early December. “You never use it.” I admit due to the cold weather snap that had resulted in the roads becoming covered in more salt than a dinner from a northern chippy, the car hadn’t been out of the garage for a few days. But the remark was still more hurtful than the time she fell asleep during Empire Strikes Back.
Wanting to prove the green coupe is a useful addition to our fleet and not, as she described it, “My occasional plaything,” with the salt disappearing along with the icy roads, for the rest of 2022 I choose the car over my XF Sportbrake for work trips.
The first was a 70-mile jaunt from my house outside Peterborough along the A14 to the other side of Bury St Edmunds for a Rover 2000 TC and Triumph 2000 twin test that appeared in the January 2023 issues of Classic Car Mart. Having not washed the green Jaguar for some time, the immaculate condition of Mark Watson’s Rover and John MacFarland’s Triumph put mine to shame but I took comfort that even together their four-cylinder engines don’t produce as much power as the V8 does in mine.
I doubt they’re as economical, either, since according to the Jaguar’s onboard trip computer, over a long runs like this the 4.0-litre returns a reasonably healthy 27mpg. Admittedly that’s a little under half what my XF 2.2 can achieve but with the average price of unleaded being 155p per litre, 23p less than diesel, it makes a 140-mile round trip in the XK8 like this just £15 more expensive than the estate.
Despite what my accountant says, this means you can put a price on fun because as I squeeze the pedal, feel the instant surge of power and listen to the discreet but still noticeable growl from the V8, I reckon taking the XK8 was money well-spent. As it was a few days later when I head towards Hatfield 60 miles to the south and established Aston Martin specialist, Nicolas Mee, for a rare DB5 Radford shooting brake that will appear in Aston Martin Driver.
I’ve always been fascinated by independently produced estates like this, covering many similar Jaguar-based models over the years including the handsome XJ-S Lynx Eventer. As one of my favourite cars from any manu
