Bug-in-amber Jaguar XJS for sale

Unregistered and entirely unblemished cabriolet is a history page in three dimensions...

By PH Staff / Tuesday, 28 October 2025 / Loading comments

The XJS’s position in Jaguar’s long history has sometimes been described as curious. Mostly because it didn’t really live up to the job of being an E-Type successor (how could it, really) but also because it was eventually succeeded by a car - the XK8 - that was hugely prettier than it could ever claim to be. And nicer to drive.

But to dismiss it now as a mere curio is to forget just how long it was around for (two turbulent Jaguar decades is like an ice age in a German car company) and the extent to which it helped define its maker’s image in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Also, lest we forget, under Ford’s watchful gaze, it definitely did get better. Not least to look at in its later Celebration guise that functioned as a run-out model.

This is not quite that, though it features many of the same styling and interior enhancements. No, what it is, rather gloriously, is not just a very well-preserved example of Jaguar's grand tourer, but effectively a factory-fresh time capsule with just 311 miles recorded on its clock. According to the vendor, it has never been registered, having spent the vast majority of its life as a reference model for its maker’s engineering division.

Said dealer provides a lengthy explanation of why they went out of their way to acquire the car from Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, though it hardly needs justifying on these pages: as ever, it is enough to marvel at the pictures of a 31-year-old modern classic that has seldom ever been sat in, let alone driven up the road. More often than not, there’s a trigger’s broom vibe to even very well-kept XJSs - but not this one. It is, very obviously, just as it left the factory in 1994.

This spectacle might be reduced to the status of mere novelty, were it not for the spec, which is said to be unique. For one thing, you get stately black with Nimbus grey leather, making the most of its cleaner lines; for another, you get the rarely-seen manual gearbox, and (we’re assuming), the later AJ16 variant of Jaguar’s 4.0-litre straight six. Whether or not this is the variant best preserved for posterity is open to question - but it’s the view the heritage trust took, anyway.

Now, it can be yours. That you will be asked to part with nearly £40k more than the next most expensive XJS convertible is hardly surprising, though it will obviously give even the most hardy collector pause for thought. That is as it should be: the car presents as neither transport nor investment. Like all such time machines, it is more museum artefact, one made all the more poignant by Jaguar’s decision to regard much of its past as unnecessary baggage. Probably very few people qualify as worthy custodians of such a car - let’s just hope it finds one of them.

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