Confessions of a Car Addict: Jaguar XJ-S

So car nut mate Bryan Smart generously offered to see it, travelling from Hertfordshire, staying overnight and calling me with a verdict. Or so I thought. The call came while we hacks were having a pre-dinner drink at a rather glamorous Moroccan restaurant overlooking the Atlantic. The car was good, he said. No corrosion, clearly a low-miler and in a condition to match, outside, inside and beneath a bonnet brim-filled with hardware. ‘If you want a V12 XJ-S this is the one,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it great that you now own it.’

‘Own it?’ I said, barely able to contain my surprise. ‘Yes – I’ve put a deposit on it,’ said Bryan. ‘I thought you wanted to secure the car if I thought it good enough.’

A nervous thrill shot through me. I’d thought we were going to discuss it and then negotiate a deal. My mistake and well, never mind, I thought, this recklessly unconcerned thinking easier to achieve in the balm of an autumnal Moroccan sea breeze, beer in hand. By the time Bryan had finished detailing its merits over a post-dinner phone call I was content, because it sounded terrific.

Once I’d paid the balance I’d be the owner of a 1981 XJ-S HE, the HE standing for High Efficiency. Which might sound ludicrous for a car weighing 1759kg, propelled by a 5.3-litre V12 whose efforts were transferred to the back axle via a threshingly wasteful, old-school three-speed automatic. But actually, the HE was a more efficient version of the V12, its 12 combustion chambers reworked according to the thinking of Swiss engineer Michael May.

May had devised a new shape of combustion chamber that blended air and fuel rather more energetically than previously – think Magimix food blender versus vigorously wiggled cocktail stick – the swirling gas rendered still more explosive by the V12’s new 12.5:1 compression ratio. You were getting more bang for every slug of petrol chucked the chamber’s way. Excitingly, it was known as the Fireball head; fortunately for Jaguar’s PR department, this fettled XJ-S did not turn out to be conflagration-prone.

Power rose from 285bhp to 299bhp but more importantly, fuel economy improved too, aided by a longer-legged final drive and a new, slightly less wasteful GM400 transmission. It was far more than power that rose, the XJ-S itself rising from the near-dead. In 1979, just four years after it had been launched, a temporary production halt to clear US stocks threatened to become permanent; sales were that sticky. The XJ-S was so hard to shift it was even offered to managers on the British Leyland corporate lease scheme. Your scribbler worked there back then, and can remember a colleague ordering one. The monthly payments weren’t cheap, but he reckoned it would be his only chance to experience a brand new V12 coupé.

His Squadron Blue auto looked great, but by the time it was nine months old and ready to be handed back, rust was visibly bleeding from several seams. It could easily have been a metaphor for the state Jaguar was in at the time. Marque sales were sagging badly in Europe and the US, the company afflicted by dismal quality, strikes, poor management, low morale and billowing losses, its very existence under threat as it foundered amid the morass of British Leyland politics and an oil crisis-powered recession.

It was at this point that John Egan was recruited to revitalise the company, the production line silenced by a strike on the day he arrived in April 1980. In just three years the company rebounded, the XJ-S’s 1057 sales in 1980 more than quadrupling to 4749 units in 1983. Much of this was down to the cultural shift inspired by Egan, as well as a successful campaign to get suppliers to deliver quality parts. ‘I actually managed to convince wheel suppliers that their wheels should be round,’ said Egan wryly.

Out-of-round wheels were not the only problem.  At launch the car was lauded for its effortless performance, amazing refinement and superb GT chassis. Less impressive was fuel consumption that could easily sink to as little as 12mpg, and its slightly austere cockpit that was cramped despite the car’s considerable length. Many struggled with the slightly odd styling and its most distinctive features, from the swooping buttresses and the almost gothic arch of the flat rear screen that separated them, to the unique headlights.

There was another problem too – history. Before the XJ-S there had been the E-Type, one of the most exciting cars the British motor industry has ever produced. Though long, low, sporty and dramatic, the XJ-S was no E-Type. And that was deliberate. The E-Type was a sports car evolved from a race car, its body too cramped and compromised to allow for a generously dimensioned cockpit, space for air conditioning or the crash structures needed for the 1970s and 1980s. In the early ’70s the US government had become serious about outlawing convertibles too. When, in 1973, this proposed legislation was thrown out, Jaguar had already committed to a coupé.

Engineering requirements weren’t all that drove this new Jaguar upmarket. So did company boss William Lyons, who was convinced that buyers would want more luxury, more convenience and more refinement besides more power.  When Mercedes launched its R107 SL series in 1971 he felt his point had been proved, for among the launch range was the 2+2 SLC closed coupé, a V8-powered long-distance cruiser. If nothing else, the XJ-S would outscore the SLC with its V12.

The somewhat tortured birth of the XJ-S was not my preoccupation when I travelled by train to collect it. Whether it was as good as Bryan had said was one concern, the likelihood of it propelling me the 235 miles home another. I needn’t have worried. Its condition was superb, the gingerly cruised journey home producing almost 20mpg. And an experience of some comfort. XJ-S seats might look rather thin, but they’re impressively supportive, and the general civility of the car is a match for something far younger. In that sense it doesn’t feel very classic at all, and in a good way. Oldness is plentiful elsewhere, though.

If you’re unfamiliar with the XJ-S at close quarters, inspecting one will reveal automotive proportions and architecture almost entirely absent from a car showroom today. It’s so low, for a start, the roof level with the average adult midriff. The bonnet is very obviously long as is the boot, relatively, although that’s part disguised by the twin buttresses that are the chief sculptural signature of this car. It’s also narrow, especially by today’s standards, and the tyres have deep sidewalls.

Inside, you’ll marvel at the dashboard’s lack of depth, the top of the steering wheel rim so close to the screen that your knuckles will occasionally brush it during energetic twirlings of the surprisingly thin rim. It feels luxurious, what with the leather seats, the cloth headlining and the elm wood, this added during the HE facelift, the dashboard originally decorated with chrome-edged crackle black. Chrome cappings for the bumpers, wider tyres on new alloy wheels, fat pinstripes along its flanks, central locking, electrically adjustable door mirrors and fog guard lamps were also added, while the price was actually cut, from £19,763 to £18,950. Not such a reduction you might think, except that it would have paid for a quarter of a new Mini 850.

All of this was to set the XJ-S on an astonishing reversal of fortunes that would allow the car to live, successfully, for another 15 years. There would be an XJ-S cabriolet, a full convertible, a very substantial facelift, the addition of six-cylinder engines and much more during its long life.

Of them all, it’s the HE that your reporter likes most. It’s true to the original design, but without the compromises of the early car with its spectacular thirst and disappointing interior. Having got mine – the 75^th HE made, I discovered – I trepidatiously began to enjoy it. The trepidation stemmed from the thought of it going wrong, and the potential expense if it did. Opening the bonnet to admire the V12, almost buried beneath festoons of pipes, wires, brackets and gubbins, did nothing to dampen those fears.

Yet in the 10 years I owned it there was only one failure to start, caused by a flat battery. Sometimes it would be left unused for weeks at a time, and invariably start immediately. True, it always lived indoors, initially in an underground car park, later in a remarkably dry former chicken shed, but it was always dependable.

During the period of its underground storage I had a lunch date at a pub over the road. Which went unusually well, to the point that I thought I’d show my hoped-for partner a newly acquired XJ-S, a decision that could easily have torched my ambitions. Still, she trudged over. ‘It’s very ’70s,’ she said of the colour. ‘It’s called Chestnut Metallic,’ I said. She stepped back a few paces. ‘It’s shit brown, really,’ she said. We married a few years later.

As I survey the pictures of my shit-brown Jag all over again, pangs of regret flare as powerfully as the V12 beneath its bonnet. I don’t have it any more because I had a particularly lucrative, one-off freelance year, and forgot to save some of that money for the tax bill that would come a couple of years later. The Jag was the only car I had in a saleable state – so saleable, in fact, that it was bought by Jaguar Heritage, whose then new servicing and repair operation had just worked on the car. They were sufficiently impressed to say that they’d buy it should I consider selling.

Yet it was more than a tax bill that persuaded me to part company. The other trigger was a Jaguar press event, near Goodwood, which presented the chance to drive various cars from the company’s heritage fleet. Among them was the Series 1 short-wheelbase XJ6 that had once been the possession of Sir William Lyons. PHP 42G was not only the more compact XJ saloon, but also a rare version with a manual overdrive transmission. And it was, of course, in perfect order.

After 10 minutes in this car I had to tell myself to back off from driving a museum piece of such provenance so enthusiastically, but it was so hard to resist. This car perfectly encapsulates the mix of sports saloon and cosy limo that Jaguar achieved so brilliantly with the original XJ, its willingness to dart into bends and hold its line regardless of the bumps beneath producing an experience as addictive as it was serene.

But what it also did was expose the shortcomings of the V12 XJ-S. Which is nowhere near as keen to rip into a corner. Nor, when you drive it in the automatic form in which it will almost certainly come, does it feel especially fast. The transmission’s sole goal is to climb toward the comfort of top gear – third – as soon as possible, a strategy ensuring that the V12 is rarely troubled to rotate at more than 3000rpm, often less, most of the time. To get a V12 XJ-S automatic to go you must hold it in second gear – you can almost hear the gush of fuel from tank to injectors – and then let the rev counter needle fly around the dial. It’s then that you discover that this under-stressed V12’s best work is done well north of 4000rpm.

You also discover the XJ-S’s other favoured modus operandi, which is to travel in straight lines rather than deftly manoeuvring itself through a tight-packed maze of bends. It’s not that the Jag doesn’t have the grip or poise to tackle them. It’s just that it would rather not, in contrast to that early XJ saloon. It is a resolute cruiser and, dare I say it, just a tiny bit dull. You can, and will, marvel at the plush ride, the relative silence and the feeling of security, qualities all the more valuable over the big distances of which it is very capable. But a truly exciting driver’s car it is not. I knew I had bought a GT, yet that drive in the earliest iteration of the car on which it was based, the ’68 XJ6, revealed a more exciting way to enjoy the dynamics of the rather brilliant XJ platform. So this XJ-S was sold back to its maker after 10 years of enjoyment.

Happily, it’s still out there now, its MoT history indicating a mileage of just 30,000. Meanwhile the ghost of that rare thing, a 1970s British motor industry success story, lives on with Jaguar’s electric future. Just look at the proportions of the XJ-S, and the Type 00 Concept and you’ll see what I mean.