So 136,000 miles might not seem much of a qualification to be drafted into the exclusivity of the HMC. I mean, we've featured plenty of cars - Land Cruisers, S-Classes and the like - that would've cracked off that sort of distance within moments of passing out from their PDI parade. But when it comes to Jaguars, and coupe ones especially, high mileages aren't, perhaps, quite so commonplace. That's why this one takes the honours today. Now, it's not quite the leggiest XKR currently out there in the PH classifieds - one of Ian Callum's later X150s is showing 137,000 miles - but it is by far the cheapest. Hand over a cheque for just £6,000 and you'll get this Topaz car with Oatmeal leather, and a pound back in change. Not bad really, when you think what you're getting.
This is an X100 - the first generation of XK8/XKR that was designed under the stewardship of the late Geoff Lawson. His remit was to produce something slippery that harked back to the spirit of the E-Type. After 21 years of the XJ-S, with its '70s style and flying buttresses, it was time to bring back the curvaceousness of Jaguar's '60s icon. People couldn't wait. They were begging Jaguar dealers to take their cash in advance of the car's launch in 1996.
There were elements of the XJ-S in the XK8's floor pan, but this was a heavily upgraded design. The rear subframe was from the X300, but up front there was an all-new, lightweight and much stiffer aluminium subframe. Not only that, it had a brand-new, all-alloy 4.0-litre AJ-V8 engine sitting on top of it. This had 32 valves and variable cam phasing. It had attention to detail, too. For example, the new V8 used a lot less coolant than the XJ16 it superseded; not only did this make it relatively light but it warmed up quicker and produced fewer emissions. What people really appreciated, though, was that fact that the inside became toastier far sooner on a cold, winter's day.
The XK8 was also the first Jaguar to use CAN bus serial networking. This was flippin' high-tech stuff at the time. Analogue was for luddites, and we were heading towards the year 2000, the digital age, and Jaguar wasn't going to shy away from it for fear of catching a millennium bug. The XK8's many modules could all chat to each other in a series of zeros and ones. It could do this far quicker than any analogue system could operate and through far fewer wires. It also meant it came with traction and electronic stability control that actually worked. The X300's traction control literally had a motor pulling the throttle shut using a cable, which was in addition to the cable you were using to open it. It was like a tug of war and all a bit Heath Robinson. The XK8 didn't need a throttle cable at all. It had a drive-by-wire throttle that could snap shut in an instant. And a five-speed automatic gearbox, which was made by ZF and sealed-for-life.
Everyone made a fuss about Ian Callum's DB7 at around the time the XK8 was launched. That's because it was low and sleek and totally in proportion. Lawson had more constraints put upon him than Callum, though. The XK8 had to be bigger inside to fit the round, burger-bloated Americans that Ford hoped would buy it in huge numbers. And they played a lot of golf, which meant it needed enough boot space to fit two bags of golfing batons. As a result, it looked a bit ballooned compared with the DB7, and its boot stuck out like a dolphin's nose. But the DB7 wasn't bristling with this new technology. Instead, underneath that pretty body was a huge gathering of Jaguar's hand-me-downs: an old AJ6 engine, a clunky four-speed auto, an XJ-S rear end and XJ40 dials.
The XK8 wasn't just a bit more advanced by comparison. It was a Seiko quartz wristwatch while the DB7 was a sundial. And when the XKR version arrived, it obliterated the DB7 on pace as well. By sticking a supercharger between the vee of the AJ-V8, Jaguar ratcheted it up to 370hp and 387 lb ft of grunt. That gave it a hell of a kick and meant it could hit 0-62mph in 5.4 seconds. An automatic DB7 took a glacial 6.9 seconds. The point here is that the XK8/XKR was a much better product than the DB7, yet you won't find any of Aston's babies kicking around for £6k and a pound in change. And that's my case for why this XKR isn't just a bargain, it's the thinking man's choice, too.
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