CLASSIC DRIVE
Searching for a classic Jaguar survivor? Then on the evidence of this beautifully preserved XJ12, Norway looks like a good place to start
F disagreewith the sentiment that the Covid pandemic changed the world in general and the classic car business in particular. Over on our classic titles, as we beavered away during lockdown wondering how we might fill the news pages of our weekly old car paper we were grateful for the sudden emergence of distance selling operations and online auctions as enthusiasts welcomed the enforced home leave to get busy out in the garage.
In the main however, these were project cars and delivery involved little more than a day’s driving for the man in a beavertail Transit rather than a trek from Scandinavia to Kent.
For that’s what happened in the case of the XJ12 you see here, present owner Angelo Lione having taken what some might regard as a gamble in buying it from its Norwegian owner unseen.
As he explains though, it wasn’t as rash as it seemed, since at the time UK travellers couldn’t enter to Norway without being vaccinated. “I hadn’t had the jab though,” laughs Angelo who considered asking someone to go and inspect the car on his behalf. In the end though, the seller provided so much information in the form of photos and videos that he felt confident taking a chance.
An engineer working on North Sea oil rigs, the vendor had clearly cherished the XJ and had maintained it fastidiously, as witnessed by the big framed wiring diagram visible in the wall in one video and the immaculately presented garage itself. The decider was a beautifully kept journal detailing every journey the car had made during his ownership, including miles travelled and calculated fuel economy. “I’m buying that car,” thought Angelo to himself once he’d seen that.
As you might have noticed, the XJ is right-hand drive so how did it come to be in Norway in the first place? Well even the car’s three folders packed full of history don’t explain its Scandinavian odyssey but it’s clearly done it no harm as the car has survived rather better than most of the Series 2s which remained here.
Sold new in 1975 by Kenning in Leicestershire, the car is the longwheelbase model which had become standard by then, the short wheelbase having been dropped in 1974 and was with its first owner until 1985 when it went to Sweden, where it would live for another decade before being sold into Norway in 1996. it was sold on within Norway to the owner who would eventually sell it back to Angelo here in the UK.
