OUR JAGUARS | PHIL WEEDEN
Our X350 takesonanew keeper
ACOUPLE of months back, I wrestled the keys of our X350 4.2 Sport from Editor Wager as he’d graciously agreed to take on another project car for elsewhere in the group. I hadn’t spent much time with our XJ8 of late, and Iwas certainly grateful to get back behind the wheel.
Or at least Iwould have been had it not been 28°C on the day Icollected it, ready for a 150-mile slog from Cheltenham to Kent. The air conditioning has failed and even with the climate control temperature set at 17°, the circulating air is more Arabia than Arctic.
Besides that, though, our Pacific Blue barge continues to surprise and delight at just how competent it is. Despite it now being over 20 years old and wearing 152,000 miles, it drives impeccably and the interior is holding up well. The leather still looks like new and the rest of the trim is still immaculate with no signs of cracking, warping or discolouration.
I remember when I became editor of Jaguar Monthly back in 1999, I was handed the keys to a 4.0-litre XJ40 Sovereign, at that time just a nineyear old, top-of-the-range XJ. It was showing its age back then, with some early signs of rust, and an interior that was starting to fade and distort.
Ican’t get my head around X350 values either. Certain low mileage, top-spec cars can still command top dollar, while others seem to be languishing around the £3-4k mark –the cheapest one I’ve seen is an XJ6 Sovereign with 159k on the clock for £2000 (around $2600). That makes these models, in my opinion, astonishing value for money.
There are still things to sort on our car, and I’d like to look into getting them rectified before the winter. In addition to the air conditioning, the headlining is sagging and I suspect the rear dampers need replacing. Regular readers may recall we replaced the front ones ayear orso ago. We couldn’t source Sport ones for love nor money, so the fronts are actually Comfort spec, proper Jaguar items at around £8
