own a jaguar

I don’t necessarily need a Jag anymore. They’re still great, but owning one isn’t that important to me.

I have a 96 XJ6. Sure, it isn’t new, but it is beautiful, and Jaguar had over 30 years to perfect the straight-6. I drive it like a Korean cop. I have had only minor problems which are expected on a car getting this old- the cooling fans started screwing up, the interior lights were malfunctioning, and that’s it. The cost was around $1000 to fix, but keep in mind,the engine has NEVER had a problem. It is very hard to justify buying any other Jaguar and I’ll tell you why. The early XJ8s, which are beautiful, have Nikasil coating (I think this is the same for the early XK8s) which deteriorates, along with weak timing chains and head gaskets, causing the engines to destroy themselves. The later XJ8s and XK8s are more reliable, but are too close to the new XJ8s and XKs in price to justify buying them, considering they are older body styles. The new XJs are ugly, imho. They look pregnant compared to the 95-2003 models and are going to really show their age when the newer XJs are released in a few years. The S types are Ford rebodies, and the X types are VERY unreliable (transmissions failing at 30K and the like). That leaves us with the new XK, which is a work of art but so expensive that one could get a used Aston Martin for the same price, or the XF, which isn’t out yet (and who knows how the public will react to it). In short, the 95-97 XJ6 is the best jaguar out there. It is pretty much a bulletproof car. Don’t let anyone fool you. It was JD Powers and Assoc. Most Reliable Car of the Year in 96. The price is so low, it is silly. There aren’t many other cars that give you so much for the cash; other steals are the BMW 8 series and the Honda S2000. Also, people have no idea how old the car is. People constantly say “You have a Jaguar?” and then the “They’re paying you too much over there” line always comes up. Really, you could get one for the same price as a mid-90s Honda Accord.

I found one, it was pearl white and oh so beautiful! I get out of my Saturn to look at it, manual transmission. I can’t drive it. What a disappointment. Perhaps I should add that to one of my goals…

This is a story about the beautiful Jaguar I owned in the year 1963 (yes, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth!). It’s a rather long entry but I hope you’ll enjoy it.

When I reached the advanced age of 16, my father in his wisdom decided that I should get a job. There weren’t too many jobs available for boys my age, but my father managed to find one. It consisted of delivering Sunday papers all around the surrounding countryside. This was referred to as a “motor route” and my father felt that this was a fine job for me, since I could do it year-round and still go to school.

My own enthusiasm was somewhat less, especially considering that the job required me to get up at a time of day that until then had been unknown territory: four o’clock in the goddamn morning. That was when the bundles of papers were delivered to our carport and that was when I had to be up and dressed and ready to start work. Considering that the experience was one of pure agony I do have to admit that it was an excellent introduction to the true nature of working for a living.

This experience was made a bit more bearable by the fact that I got to deliver papers while driving the car that my father and I had rebuilt over the previous winter: a cherry-red 1957 XK140 Jaguar. This two-seater sports car had been nearly a total wreck when we bought it. After an incredible amount of work, we turned it into a snarling scarlet beast with chrome wire wheels and big loud dual exhausts. It would go around the tightest corners like it was on rails it handled so well. It had three two-barrel carburetors feeding a dual overhead cam engine that produced the magic number of exactly one horsepower per cubic inch. In other words, it was a rolling wet dream, a spectacular pussywagon that I would give anything to own once again. It was so low-slung that you could sit in the driver’s seat and touch the ground with your fingertips.

All that carburetion meant that it took a certain amount of practice before you could get it started, especially in cold weather. Once you had it running though, the sound those big two-barrels made when you gave it full throttle was indescribable. You had to be there. There really aren’t any words to tell you what it was like to be sixteen years old and all alone on new blacktop with that car. That car. That wonderful car.

Once I was out on the road and into the work of stuffing Sunday papers into mailboxes, the whole thing moved from the “agony” category right into the “adventure” portion of experience. For one thing, I discovered to my happy surprise that farmwives don’t wear a whole lot of clothes at that time of day. I could hardly believe that anybody else was even conscious at that hour, let alone females dressed in filmy nightgowns. To my delight, several of these ladies would come right up to the Jag to get their papers and would display about 90% of their boobs in the process. I have to tell you that in 1963 this was a pretty thrilling experience. In 1963 the sight of a woman’s nearly bare breasts swaying in my face was an electric jolt that immediately rerouted three-quarters of my blood supply straight down to Mr. Happy.

This is not to say that every woman I met on my motor route looked like Aphrodite rising from the sea. Not quite. Some were a lot more like dinosaurs rising from the La Brea tar pits. There was one from that category that used to lie in wait for me every Sunday. She lived alone and I don’t think she got out much, because even at my age I could tell that it got her motor running real good when this 16 year old cutie (as I’m sure I seemed to her) would smile at her from that sexy red Jaguar.

I’m sad to say that in my youthful insensitivity I gave her very little in return for her devotion to my brief weekly appearance. A polite smile, a few words and I was gone in a snarl of exhausts down that cold hard pavement, leaving her with a long day of nothing in particular and probably no one but a few cats to share it with. I tell you I would give a great deal to be back in that time once again and give that poor lonesome lady whatever small comfort she might have had from me.

Speaking of hard pavement, there was this one agonizing stretch of brand new blacktop that ran straight as a ruler for three glorious miles. I say “agonizing” because one of my customers had the poor taste to live right smack in the middle of it. That meant that I could only get up to full speed for a few brief moments before I had to stand on the brakes and slow down to nothing again so I could stuff their stupid damn paper in their stupid damn mailbox. That strip of pavement cried out for me to take the little red Jag up to its top speed of 140 mph and keep it there for a while!

Finally one day I just couldn’t stand it any more and I kept my foot on the gas. I just kept going. I was going down that road in the still morning air like sunlight slicing through the clouds, I was going and I was going and now here comes that goddamned mailbox and there goes their Sunday paper right out the window and right into the side of the mailbox WHAM! at 140 miles an hour! I looked up to the rearview mirror as I went roaring away from that moment and I saw nothing but a furious cloud of debris where the mailbox had been. I never went back and I never had to slow down again on that beautiful new blacktop.

well, it’s not quite the james bond XKR kinda thing, but it’s worth owning one of the classic jags just of the experience. The experience of wondering where the next petrol station is, or the experience of what that squeaking noise is coming from the wheel, or how funking amazing the 3.2 litre engine sounds or how bl00dy quiet the ride is, or how much the whole car seems a bit like a mobile sofa. Great fun. Obviously for those who are searching for the XKR james bond kinda thing – three words MID LIFE CRISIS – by a Kawasaki Ninja, far more exciting.

This has been my dream car for a long long time. Guess I’ll have to put my degree to good use if i want a car like this. For now I’ll settle with my Acura Legend

I remember exactly the moment I got hooked.
The movie was “Memento” and it featured a green Jaguar XK8 Convertible. That’s about all I remember from that movie, I couldn’t concentrate much afterwards. :)
I mean, come on, which car can beat those Jaguar so-classy-stylish lines & curves?
And after getting so lucky and test-driving one, I’m absolutly convinced – I indeed found my dream car.
Webster dictionary defines Dream Car as: an eyes-picking car that you probably could never afford. ;)
I’m aware of that, yet the hope remains.
who knows, maybe I will be THAT rich some day I could afford one, & even if I’m not (there’s always this chance:) I will know, I have lived a meaningful life none-the-less.

Like an Aston Martin – or a leopard!

Well, technically, it’s my husband’s Jaguar. It’s a cult car and the maintenance on an old one is about the same as the payments on a new one would be, except they don’t stop after four years. My advice: don’t get one if you need actual transportation. Unless looking cool is more important, because they do look cool. :)