SOTW: Jaguar XJ6

[JaguarsportXJR]

J4CKO said:

I would find it funny if I bought one of these as people would remark as to how much I must be paid, how much it must use in fuel etc etc, they then walk off shaking their head and get in their 15 grand diesel Polo.

That's pretty much a daily amusement to be honest.

[Marc W]

One of my mates had an immaculate J reg XJ6 a few years ago. It was like new even though it was about 15 years old at that point. He decided it was an old mans car though and traded it in for a Beetle!

[j_s14a]

My old X300 XJR6



Bought it at auction for £350, with tax and MOT. Had two months of fantastic, trouble free wafting, then I sold it for £1k.

That's top shedding!

[Denver09]

I bought my x300 in 2009 for £1200 with 179k on the clock. It was immaculate apart from the drives bolster. Drove it as a daily for a year and it costs me £14 to get it through it's MOT to replace a lost fuel filler cap - and that was it in that year. Front bushes were on their way out though. Sold it at the end of that year for £900 trade only because I moved abroad.

Fabulous car and I miss it dearly.

[8potdave]

Very nice. Although for a smidge more you could have my XJ8 Sport with it's V8 loveliness

[W124Bob]

I'm from the Arthur Daley era so it's the series 3 that does it for me with the dodgey dealer image.Plenty of XJ300's running round south Manchester at the moment all driven by men of a certain age.

[Ian350]

I bought a late XJ40 with 40k miles on the clock and sold it with 165k miles (yes - one hundred and sixty five thousand) on it. I had to have a new diff at 110k, the air con packed up, and there was a problem with a wire to the fuel pump at one stage. - but I think that was all that ever went wrong with it.

[infradig]

Top Gear in 1968? Seems unlikely ,almost as unlikely as Mercedes and BMW having the 'large exec' market sewn up. In the 1960's Jaguar had a range of well respected and popular executive cars from the 240/340 the S -Type/ 420 to the 420G. In the UK their competition would have been Rover,Humber,Triumph and the top of the range Fords,Vauxhalls etc. America and the colonies were still falling over themselves to buy Jags and most of Europe either hadn't got the money and or roads to make it worth pursuing. The exceptions either had unfavourable tax laws meaning anything over 2litres was only for millionaires or was Germany! Which brings us to Mercedes and BMW, well built,well engineered but very spartan and cold and ver,very expensive. I once owned a 1968 300sel and a 1970 XJ6 at the same time,the new price of the Merc would have been 2 or 3 times that of the. Jag but even with Ambla seats and wind up windows it was the XJ that felt special and even as a 2.8 would leave the Merc for dead. I think the E3 BMw came out around the same time as the XJ and was BMW's first mainstream big car,it was ,I think sportier and faster than the Jags , but again in the UK at least was expensive.

[soad]

Makes me want a XJR.

[scottiedog]

Want one so bad. Across the pond here the X300's sell for top $$$'s, more than the newer X308's with less miles as the 4.0 I6 will never die, plenty with star ship miles running around. Crazy to think back in the day these were just as reliable as an LS400.

[pjac67]

Reminds me of 6m ago when I bought an X300 and ran it for 1700 miles for £31 (inc. fuel, ins. etc etc ):

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[Hellbound]

Phil Mitchell drives a Range Rover now so maybe it's okay to get an old Jag.

[soad]

pjac67 said:

Reminds me of 6m ago when I bought an X300 and ran it for 1700 miles for £31 (inc. fuel, ins. etc etc ):

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Excellent work, nicely done!

[seefarr]

This is all well and good but it does make a chap think "well that's cheap, but how cheap is an XJR"?

Oh. . . . bugger. £2550

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/j...

[vixen1700]

seefarr said:

This is all well and good but it does make a chap think "well that's cheap, but how cheap is an XJR"?

Oh. . . . bugger. £2550

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/j...

That looks lovely and is criminally cheap. It's another of those cars, that if I wasn't spending money on the TVR this year, I'd want to buy for no other reason than I really want it.

[soad]

seefarr said:

This is all well and good but it does make a chap think "well that's cheap, but how cheap is an XJR"?

[Jaguar steve]

There.

5 pages in and nobody's started a fight yet - that just proves the universal appeal of an old XJ

[seefarr]

Jaguar steve said:

There.

5 pages in and nobody's started a fight yet - that just proves the universal appeal of an old XJ

Where's 300bhp? Surely an American car would be better!!!

[Big Fat Fatty]

vixen1700 said:

seefarr said:

This is all well and good but it does make a chap think "well that's cheap, but how cheap is an XJR"?

Oh. . . . bugger. £2550

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/j...

That looks lovely and is criminally cheap. It's another of those cars, that if I wasn't spending money on the TVR this year, I'd want to buy for no other reason than I really want it.

I've just ran an insurance quote on that very car, I could not believe my eyes compared to what I pay for my humble Accord. The itch is getting itchier and my man maths can justify it easily

I must say though they're not as big as some of you have suggested, I've seen these things dwarfed by modern Focus' and the like in car parks.

[dbdb]

The X300 is definitely one of the better ways to run a "Shed of the week". They're such a lot of car for so little money and robust, reliable cars which shouldn't be howlingly expensive to run. Bought sensibly there is no reason why it should go wrong. Check for rust though!

The article said:

The Series 3s and early XJ40s were a bit trying, with their Joe 'Prince of Darkness' Lucas electrics, Commodore 64-level computers and self-ruining rear suspensions, but by the time Jaguar reached the X300 in 1994, it had become clear to most that this was a smashing car let down more by poor components than poor design.

I'm not sure whether I should be irked by the writer's lack of Jaguar knowledge, or amused by it. That XJ40s are fragile and universally prone to electrical problems is a myth. An oft repeated myth, but a myth nonetheless. The writer has even managed to invent a new fault – self-ruining rear suspension. A new one!

All twin cam XJ40s are very robust indeed mechanically – the whole drive train is especially long lived and virtually identical to the ‘transformed’ X300.

The electrical problems of the early XJ40s were overcome in late 1989 when the car received a new electrical system with very few shared components. These are more reliable than most other cars. The XJ40 was updated again for 1993MY. Though virtually unchanged visually, late XJ40s probably have as much in common with the X300 as the first XJ40s. Late cars are very reliable indeed. Mine has needed one new relay in 20 years. That’s all. That the first reliable Jaguar is the X300 is a myth – luckily though, one that’s not believed by most PHers.

Jaguar steve said:

There.

5 pages in and nobody's started a fight yet - that just proves the universal appeal of an old XJ