Declasm's 1995 X300 Jaguar Sovereign 4.0
Discussion
Bit of a back story here in this thread:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
If you can't be bothered to read that basically I have bought a Jag to keep temporarily and use to chauffeur my best friend around on his stag do next weekend!
Pistonheads, being the fount of all knowledge directed me towards this particular model, and I'm pretty chuffed with the one I dug up! In actual fact it's more car than I ever dreamed possible at the price I bought it for
Anyway a few pictures for you:
So, first impressions - I haven't yet had a chance to drive her much, just 40 miles back from the seller's house, he was a nice chap called Phil (where he lived was a stark contrast to some of the places I've visited to buy old BMWs)! The Jag however is lovely, smooth and disconcertingly quiet to drive. I think she has a pretty low mileage too, only 107K where a few at the same price had twice that! I can't say that I am blown away by the performance, I can really see why Jaguar chose to put a supercharger in the XJR but then again I didn't buy the car for hooning, just for wafting and entertaining! I love the interior appointments and the wood inside, the leather is still lovely too and everything electric seems to work. Only one issue I've noticed is a belt whining at the front of the engine bay for a minute or two after a cold start-up - anyone know which one it might be?
I think I'm going to struggle to part with this car once she's done the job I bought her for.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
If you can't be bothered to read that basically I have bought a Jag to keep temporarily and use to chauffeur my best friend around on his stag do next weekend!
Pistonheads, being the fount of all knowledge directed me towards this particular model, and I'm pretty chuffed with the one I dug up! In actual fact it's more car than I ever dreamed possible at the price I bought it for
Anyway a few pictures for you:
So, first impressions - I haven't yet had a chance to drive her much, just 40 miles back from the seller's house, he was a nice chap called Phil (where he lived was a stark contrast to some of the places I've visited to buy old BMWs)! The Jag however is lovely, smooth and disconcertingly quiet to drive. I think she has a pretty low mileage too, only 107K where a few at the same price had twice that! I can't say that I am blown away by the performance, I can really see why Jaguar chose to put a supercharger in the XJR but then again I didn't buy the car for hooning, just for wafting and entertaining! I love the interior appointments and the wood inside, the leather is still lovely too and everything electric seems to work. Only one issue I've noticed is a belt whining at the front of the engine bay for a minute or two after a cold start-up - anyone know which one it might be?
I think I'm going to struggle to part with this car once she's done the job I bought her for.
Things are going swimmingly with the Jag. I'm now constantly thinking of other trips to make in order to keep her just a little longer!
So the initial trip - up to and around birmingham for my mate's stag do worked out really well, a very pleasant place to be for me driving in the wind and rain, getting stuck in a 2 hour traffic queue on the A419 and cruising into birmingham city centre. it was also a great place for my mate to get a couple of extra hours sleep spread across the generous rear bench on the way back home on sunday morning!
The car was quickly called into service again to go to birmingham once more when I was required to go there for a 3 day conference last week and I'm starting to think there's no better car to wait out a traffic jam or drive oblivious the weather that would normally have me hunched over the steering wheel with my nerves on fire!
One aspect of the car I didn't expect to enjoy so much is the cassette player. I pulled my old 90s tapes out of the loft - these are tapes I used to listen to in my peugeot 106 back in 99-00, so much of the wafting done in the jag has also been quite nostalgic, although perhaps the style of music has been slightly incongruous with nature of the car (think punk!).
So the initial trip - up to and around birmingham for my mate's stag do worked out really well, a very pleasant place to be for me driving in the wind and rain, getting stuck in a 2 hour traffic queue on the A419 and cruising into birmingham city centre. it was also a great place for my mate to get a couple of extra hours sleep spread across the generous rear bench on the way back home on sunday morning!
The car was quickly called into service again to go to birmingham once more when I was required to go there for a 3 day conference last week and I'm starting to think there's no better car to wait out a traffic jam or drive oblivious the weather that would normally have me hunched over the steering wheel with my nerves on fire!
One aspect of the car I didn't expect to enjoy so much is the cassette player. I pulled my old 90s tapes out of the loft - these are tapes I used to listen to in my peugeot 106 back in 99-00, so much of the wafting done in the jag has also been quite nostalgic, although perhaps the style of music has been slightly incongruous with nature of the car (think punk!).
So the Jag is gone. Finally sold her a few weeks back so it would seem that a couple of weeks of ownership turned into 5 months! For a while it seemed to me that all my wife would say to me was - 'have you sold that Jag yet?'. In the end it was bought by a lady as a gift to her father who was recovering from cancer - he'd always wanted an XJ so mine fitted the bill!
Ownership was a very pleasant experience, very much one of luxurious wafting that is always talked about. Fuel economy wasn't inspiring, The best I managed was 26mpg (by the obc) on one of my trips up to Birmingham but luckily I was paid mileage by work for every long trip apart from the stag do
There was only one bit of drama - I had taken the kids out for the day and driven over to Brooklands. On the way home accelerating onto the A3 one of the radiator hoses split so the car spewed a huge cloud of steam for a mile or so until I could pull into the services and call the RAC. the hose was temporarily fixed by the RAC man and a few days later I bought a new hose so all fixed.
I would definitely have one again (and make sure it only played tapes!)
Ownership was a very pleasant experience, very much one of luxurious wafting that is always talked about. Fuel economy wasn't inspiring, The best I managed was 26mpg (by the obc) on one of my trips up to Birmingham but luckily I was paid mileage by work for every long trip apart from the stag do
There was only one bit of drama - I had taken the kids out for the day and driven over to Brooklands. On the way home accelerating onto the A3 one of the radiator hoses split so the car spewed a huge cloud of steam for a mile or so until I could pull into the services and call the RAC. the hose was temporarily fixed by the RAC man and a few days later I bought a new hose so all fixed.
I would definitely have one again (and make sure it only played tapes!)
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