HISTORY
Can a pre-production former press car turn into a future classic, especially one with the muchmaligned 2.7-litre diesel engine? We find one
I CAN remember my teenage years during the Eighties when the majority of Jaguars I came across were regarded as nothing but old bangers. Many an XJ was seemingly transforming into a rot box and was consequently either scrapped or robbed of its parts for spares or to build a kit car. The classic car boom that crashed towards the end of that decade helped to preserve some models, such as the E-Type, but those XJ saloons including the now rare XJC were disposable and not worth the trouble.
As with many other mainstream cars, most notably Fords, many people are now left metaphorically kicking themselves for not preserving their family cars that fell to ruin and are now worth a small fortune. So, should the 2007 XJ seen here be preserved and pampered in the hope that one day it will turn into a pot of gold?
Unsurprisingly, this particular vehicle wasn’t bought by its current owners Auto Reserve, independent Jaguar breakers and parts specialist, as an investment. They bought the car with a rattling engine earlier this year, having been buying up Jaguars with anything from rotten bodywork to knocking engines since 2006, preferring to buy vehicles they can test-drive before dismantling them to help determine which parts can be removed and sold.
So, at first, this was just another Jag to them, albeit a long-wheelbase model. However, the almost spotless Pearl Grey (paint code JBC2030) exterior along with the Ivory leather interior caught their attention. With nearly 130k on the clock, it’s not much for a 16-year-old vehicle, but it has clearly worn well, and its MoT history tells a familiar tale of brake and tyre issues raising advisories or other failures that have been straightforward to remedy. Looking over the fully loaded interior, there are toys galore. Rear seat passengers, for instance, not only have extra legroom thanks to an additional 12.5cm (almost five inches) between the front and rear wheels provided by the 3159mm wheelbase, but the rear seat bases are individually adjustable with the controls on the outer edges of the bolsters. And that’s not all. There are folding picnic tables mounted in the backs of the front seat with courtesy lighting below, DVD screens in the backs of the headrests and an impressive bank of controls hidden inside the centre armrest.
My favourite, however, is perhaps one of the simplest luxuries that must have taken countless hours of development time and testing to get right – the sun blinds. Whilst there’s an electronically controlled rear blind over the parcel shelf, the ones I like the most are the manually operated roller blinds mounted inside each rear door, which extend upwards and hook into the door top.
No, they don
