A honey-smooth dose of lounge-lizardry with a side order of schmooze this week with this rather nice powder blue Jag XJ.
Is it nice though? Potentially, yes. We had an indigo blue one of these on here last June, an ’03 Sport with 167,000 miles and a £2,000 price tag on it. The MOT on that car expired a couple of weeks ago. Despite the last test coming up squeaky clean and the ones before it raising no cause for alarm, it has not yet been put in for another one. That could mean nothing - or everything.
Today’s shed, another 2003 XJ, has a similar butter-wouldn’t-melt look to its MOT history. An air suspension warning light came on in 2008 at 71,000 miles. The lower rear suspension bushes were replaced in 2015 at 117,000 miles, and by the looks of it, new upper suspension bushes and new tyres were fitted on all corners after last September’s test, by which point the mileage had reached 156,000. Otherwise it’s been plain sailing down at the testing station with just the usual consumable items mentioned every now and then.
It breezed through last week’s test at 160,000 miles with no advisories, which chimes nicely with the vendor’s statement that there’s a mountain of service history with it. The vendor hasn’t been able to resist a ‘sold as seen’ comment, which will rile some of you, but if we take a carefree view on that as nothing more than a sign o’ the times, what we are left with appears to be spotless, up to and including the underbonnet area.
As most of you will know this X350 model was the last of the old-shape Jags. The shape may have been old but the aluminium it was built from wasn’t. The stressed body had 35 extrusions and 284 stampings, which for Shed sounds like a normal Friday night in the postmistress’s shiplap love dungeon. This metallurgical modification knocked 40 per cent off the weight of the previous steel model and allowed even the basic X350 to make good use of the 240hp and 221lb ft dished out by its naturally aspirated 3.0 litre V6 motor.
Our shed is an SE rather than a Sport but there’s no need to hold that against it. The Sport covered the 0-60mph in the mid-sevens and went on to 145mph. The SE was a tenth or so slower to 60mph, but everything else was the same and some of you might prefer its extra chromeyness. The average fuel consumption was 27mpg, which meant you could get 500 very restful miles from one 18+ gallon tankful of juice. The annual VED bill is £430.
You’ll see a Valet button on the dash. When activated via a PIN number on the infotainment screen – well, that’s what happens on newer Jags anyway, Shed’s assuming it’s the same here – Valet mode restricted access to someone you trusted just enough to drive the car but not quite enough to have a squint at the contents of your boot. As long as he remembered to activate Valet mode in his much-missed X350 XJR, Shed found he could keep all manner of unsavoury gear in the boot without having to worry about it being discovered by Mrs Shed.
The downside of course, apart from Mrs Shed’s annoyance at never being allowed to use the boot for shopping (‘the latch is broken dear’) was that the electrics were a weak point on these. Shed could never be 100 per cent sure that his Valeted boot wouldn’t randomly decide to display its grisly contents at the most inappropriate time and place.
Obscenity laws prevent the sharing of Shed’s views on the JaGuar Type 00 concept, but he has always liked the classic XJ. He sees it as an elegant solution for the man who doesn’t have any hangups about his position in life or any concerns about the size of his gentleman’s package. By a quirk of fate, this car is located in Littlehampton. That’s down Bognor way isn’t it, so even if you end up not buying it it’s a nice day out. Don’t forget to take your virtual trilby and cardigan.
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