Jaguar XJ-S – Driven To Write

Welcome to the Machine : Part Seven

More than one way to behead a cat.

The XJ-S at its Geneva 1988 debut. Image: Car Magazine

Following the carmaker’s remarkable return from near-death only three years previously, America’s movers and shakers were once again buying Jaguars in number. “The word has got out on the cocktail circuit that the Jaguar is the car to have”, Jaguar Inc Press Officer, Mike Cook told journalists in 1983. But the lack of an open-topped XJ-S model would soon become a genuine impediment to sales growth. From this point onwards, US requests for a convertible would become increasingly strident.

The Jaguar board realised that the expediently engineered XJ-S Cabriolet could only buy them a certain amount of time, but meanwhile something needed to be done to mollify potential US customers, for whom nothing but a full convertible would suffice and who would otherwise simply Continue reading “Welcome to the Machine : Part Seven”

Welcome to the Machine : Part Six

Giving the XJ-S a brake.

Nobody ever purchased a Grand Turismo motor car for its load-carrying capabilities, there being vehicles better suited to such tasks. But for a select few, such binary propositions exist only as orthodoxies to be upturned. It requires a certain mentality to envisage the recasting of something as indulgent as a 2+2 GT into an estate car. But in order to fill a vacuum, one must first Continue reading “Welcome to the Machine : Part Six”

Welcome to the Machine : Part Five

Opening up the XJ-S. In sections.

Even amongst luxurious and indulgent grand turismos the Jaguar XJ-S stood apart, alongside its other more contentious attributes for its disproportionate length-to-cabin ratio. Despite generous exterior proportions, the XJ-S was avowedly a 2+2, with the rear seats of only the occasional variety. But if close-coupled coupés might be considered the preserve of the sybarite, its drophead coupé equivalent was by comparison entirely the chariot of the hedonist.

During the early 1970s, convertibles began to fall out of favour on both sides of the Atlantic. The reasons for this are complex, but a major factor influencing carmakers involved fears of draconian United States federal safety proposals which threatened to outlaw open-topped cars entirely, or at the very least render them unsaleable. In Europe on the other hand, as socio-political tensions began to turn violent, the Riviera-set elected to Continue reading “Welcome to the Machine : Part Five”

Sayer’s Moodboard

The Jaguar XJ-S came from outer space – or did it?

_{Editor’s note: This piece was originally published in November 2017.}

A shape which to this day repels as much as it fascinates, the Jaguar XJ-S remains a car which divides opinion. While the reasons for repulsion are easy enough to discern, its fascination lies not only as a function of its striking shape, but also from a sense that its styling came about without precedent. But surely no car is developed entirely in a vacuum?

Driven to Write has covered the XJ-S’ stylistic development in some detail already, so you might consider it a little self-indulgent to Continue reading “Sayer’s Moodboard”

Welcome to the Machine : Part Four

Supercat leaps back to life.

“If ‘efficiency’ is the watchword for the 1980s, what hope is there for the Jaguar XJ-S?” Opening their October 1980 test report of Jaguar’s embattled Grand Turismo coupé, UK imprint, Motor got directly to nub of the matter. Because at the time, the auguries for XJ-S were ominous.

That Spring, Jaguar itself had come within squeaking distance of closure. With production having slumped to levels not seen since the 1950s^[1], convulsed by a bruising walk-out of production workers, a melt-down at the Castle Bromwich paint plant, and high drama at board level, the storied carmaker (if indeed it could still be described as such) was clinging on by a thread.

This doom-laden mindset was echoed by striking line workers at Browns Lane, who had become convinced that BL management were determined to Continue reading “Welcome to the Machine : Part Four”

Lightning Flash

Lost causes – missing links – exhuming Jaguar’s stillborn XJ21.

1967 E-Type 2+2. Image: Classic & Sportscar

As descriptive metaphors go, bottled lightning requires little by way of explanation or exposition on the part of the writer. In 1961, Jaguar Cars successfully manged this seemingly impossible feat with the introduction of the E-Type, a car which itself would come to stand as metaphor for a now mythologised era of hedonism, permissiveness and social change. But in the Spring of ’61 all of that was for the future. Meanwhile, the manner in which the E-Type was received took Jaguar’s CEO somewhat by surprise.

Attending the E’s euphoric US debut in 1961, Sir William Lyons became painfully aware that while prospective customers were enraptured by the car, many simply couldn’t comfortably Continue reading “Lightning Flash”

Saints Alive!

The many vehicles of the Sainthood.

Roger Moore as The Saint. Image: odessasteps

The character of Simon Templar has smoothly transitioned his way from the printed page, to radio and finally the silver screen, both large and small. Created by British/ Chinese author and scriptwriter, Leslie Charteris, the devilishly handsome detective known as The Saint has always needed wheels – real or otherwise – something characterful, with a dash of the debonair.

First appearing in book form in the 1930s with Charteris employing artistic license to Continue reading “Saints Alive!”

Welcome to the Machine : Part Three

The difficult first act.

Image: British Leyland LTD – Author’s collection

The XJ-S’ first five years were undoubtedly troubled. Launched into a post oil-shock world, where 12 mpg would butter increasingly fewer people’s parsnips, while presenting a visual envelope which substituted the E-Type’s easily assimilated aesthetics for something more complex and dissonant, the Seventies Jaguar flagship would prove a cerebral, rather than a visceral choice. Also a far more expensive one, with an asking price more than double that of the last of line E-Types – but in mitigation, it was a far more sophisticated, more capable machine.

The car’s introduction also coincided with an increasingly bitter internal environment which saw Jaguar’s management (such as they were) engaged in a desperate battle for identity within a carmaking group which had become fundamentally ungovernable. As British Leyland’s flagship model, XJ-S would also help underline the national carmaker’s repeated ability to Continue reading “Welcome to the Machine : Part Three”

Welcome to the Machine : Part Two

The shock of the new manifested itself in more ways than style alone.

When Jaguar introduced the XJ-S in the autumn of 1975, the surprise many observers felt was not only visual, but also conceptual, perhaps closer in format to that of an American personal luxury coupé than anything Jaguar themselves had produced up to that point.

But Jaguar’s Sir William Lyons, the man who was to Continue reading “Welcome to the Machine : Part Two”

Welcome to the Machine : Part One

How do you follow up a classic?

In the Spring of 1973, English progressive rock band Pink Floyd released ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, their eighth studio LP and their most ambitious recording to date. With tracks which seamlessly flowed into one another, replete with cinematic sound effects, soaring soul vocalists, disembodied voices and a song-set which dealt with issues of success, the march of time and mental illness, the conceptual album became one of best selling, most critically acclaimed and best-loved progressive rock LPs of the 20th century – cited as an all-time classic.

Two years later, the band released their follow-up. ‘Wish you Were Here’ was predominantly a tribute to Pink Floyd founder-member Syd Barrett, who had had become estranged from the band following a mental breakdown in 1968^[1], it reprised many of the themes explored in the earlier recording, but in more developed form. Less acclaimed or lionised than Dark Side, for many years Wish You Were Here languished in its shadow, only latterly being correctly recognised as a classic LP in its own right.

Officially introduced just two days prior to that of Pink Floyd’s 1975 opus, Jaguar’s XJ-S was also a reprise of a much-loved original. In the run up to its announcement, fans of sporting Jaguars, which needless to say included the gentlemen of the press keenly anticipated how Browns Lane would Continue reading “Welcome to the Machine : Part One”

One At A Time The Days Arrived And Never Departed

Just the other day I was thinking about grilles (front grilles, of course). Today I ask you again to consider the Jaguar XJ-S, that famously endearing monster.

Of course the car is not just viewed from the front. From other views the effect vanishes and you notice the plan curvature and also the way the central bonnet edge is set below the level of the lamps. But let’s Continue reading “One At A Time The Days Arrived And Never Departed”

Gatto di Caprie

Bertone’s Marcello Gandini had about as much luck with leaping cats as he did with prancing horses; this 1977 proposal being another in a long line of cars which could have been Citroëns. So much so, it ended up becoming one.

“The only Jaguar thing I want to see is the leaper on the front!” 1977 Bertone Ascot concept. Image credit: (c) Car Design News

Over time, the Italian carrozzieri made numerous attempts to reimagine the work of Jaguar’s stylists, but with decidedly mixed results and limited success. Pininfarina, Ghia and Bertone had reconfigured various Jaguar models during the 1950s, while Michelotti also once rebodied a D-Type along radically different lines. But despite Jaguar’s Sir William Lyons maintaining both cordial relations and a weather eye on the major Italian styling studios, it took Bertone’s 1966 S-Type based FT concept to really capture his attention.

The first complete Bertone concept by senior designer, Marcello Gandini, the four-seater coupé was seriously evaluated at Browns Lane in both styling and engineering terms, with the Jaguar board that year exploring possible production. Gandini, like many within the Italian design community was keen to Continue reading “Gatto di Caprie”

Theme: Porsche – Turismo Twins

Two of the most distinctive cars of their time; bitter rivals, yet with much in common. Driven to Write counts the ways.

They couldn’t have looked more different, yet the fates of the Porsche 928 and Jaguar XJ-S were intrinsically bound. One seemed more like a car from the Cinzano era, the other from the future, yet both shared a purpose, appealed to the same customer base and lived out similar career paths – misunderstood and derided by those who didn’t expect their preconceived notions to be so roundly challenged.

It’s easy and perhaps comforting to Continue reading “Theme: Porsche – Turismo Twins”

Theme: Aftermarket – Stroking the Cat

Emboldeners of Jaguars are relatively few. Driven to Write profiles its foremost and longest-lived exponent – Arden Autombil.

Arden’s take on the Jaguar X308 saloon – the AJ13. Image: Arden.de

In the German town of Kleve, close to the Dutch border, Jochen Arden founded his eponymous automotive business in 1976, trading in the usual Teutonic fare of VWs and MBs until 1982, when he took on a Jaguar franchise, prompting his initial forays into the arena of the aftermarket. By the early ’80s, Jaguar was painfully re-establishing themselves in the German market following years of stagnation under British Leyland when their cars came to be regarded by German motorists as being nice to look at, but really not fit for the purpose. Continue reading “Theme: Aftermarket – Stroking the Cat”

Theme: Wheels – The GKN Kent Alloy

Some wheels come to define an era.

The GKN 'Kent' alloy wheel. Image via Hemmings — The GKN ‘Kent’ alloy wheel. Image: Hemmings

For any marque enthusiast, wheel design can be as evocative and redolent of its era as any design flourish or styling theme. To me at least, these wheels just scream Jaguar, in the same way wires did during the 1960s. I’ve habitually known them as the GKN Kent alloy, standard equipment on the original launch-spec Jaguar XJ-S and optional on XJ saloons over the ensuing decade and a half. The final XJ saloon that left the Browns Lane production line in 1992 was a Series 3 Daimler Double Six on ‘Kents‘. No other wheel design served Jaguar as long or suited the car as well. Continue reading “Theme: Wheels – The GKN Kent Alloy”

Reconvening the Committee

We examine the defamation of the XJ-S.

_{This article was originally published on Driven to Write in serialised form in the Spring of 2014.}

In September 1975 the newly nationalised British Leyland conglomerate celebrated the Jaguar XJ-S’ launch at Longbridge, the traditional home of its volume car division. The chosen venue appeared to be a calculated statement of dominance, British Leyland’s leadership making it clear to Jaguar’s management and workforce exactly who was in charge.

1975 was a tumultuous year in the UK. Petrol rationing was in force, and a 50-mph speed limit blanketed the roads. A three-day week had been enacted to Continue reading “Reconvening the Committee”

Reconvening the Committee

Was the Jaguar XJ-S really designed by committee, as some have suggested? We investigate.

The Jaguar XJ-S polarised opinion to an unprecedented degree at its 1975 introduction, initial incredulity giving way to open disdain as the car was swiftly written off as the conception of a car maker in decline. Almost immediately, the ‘designed by committee‘ sobriquet became the accepted throwaway dismissal, quickly becoming a well-worn justification for the car’s visual and commercial failings. Yet despite its troubled beginnings, the XJ-S went on to become one of the great automotive survivors. Additionally, it represents the final creative legacy of Malcolm Sayer, Jaguar’s brilliant aerodynamicist, whose work on the car was tragically cut short in 1970.

But is the design by committee label justified? To answer these questions, we must examine the factors that helped shape the most controversial sporting Jaguar ever. Please follow the link for the full article. Continue reading here.