By Antti Kautonen
I shot this for-sale feline around the same time as the outside-kept collection of Saabs. While I haven’t got the faintest idea if the owner of the Saabs is willing to let them go, this blue 1991 Jaguar Sovereign is being advertised for sale by the caravan dealer.
By the looks of things, the Jaguar has been for sale for a little while, and needs some TLC to present beautifully. Right now, I can’t see it advertised, so perhaps someone has snapped it up. Or then the ad has merely expired.
I still maintain the opinion the XJ40 would look excellent with Azev wheels, but originality is always enjoyable.
The hood has no leaper this time around. I’m pretty certain the car is a German import, as XJ40s weren’t too popular back in the day. They had their usual clientele in the late ’80s, and the 300SEL/735i/LS400 backseat directors most likely looked at Jaguars as well.
The amount of swirls is too damn high! The paint would probably respond to a skillful buffing very nicely, though.
Inside, the leather looks intact and nothing appears too worn.
I’ve always liked the XJ40, though. I know it’ll destroy my wallet, well-being and more, were I ever to trade any of my cars for an affordable one, but the clean-cut yet traditional lines and details work very well.
If I remember correctly, the asking price for this exact car was somewhere in the 7000 eur region. It’s about double the amount considered reasonable, but then again – I wouldn’t dare buy the cheapest one available, either.
[Images: Copyright 2013 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]
RoadworkUK
I am amazed at how nicely the XJ40 design is aging. When they came out I thought the shape was incredibly bland and forgettable compared to Jag's earlier saloons. Nowadays, I find myself having an increasingly positive attraction to them.
I think in ~ 20 years someone will be saying the same about the current XJ. Personally, I don't mind them at all, but they certainly get their fair share of derision.
The XJ40's dimensions are at the very least classic, while the current XJ seems to borrow heavily from various Lexus GS:s.
I would rather have a Studebaker dredged from the lake bottom,
Than a free Jaguar.
Unfortunately, there's critical shortage of lake-bottom Studebakers.
How about a Bugatti dredged from the depths?
The XJ40s are tough to recommend. They hadn't yet hit their reliability stride yet with the 4L like they did in the X300 and they were still wired by Lord Lucas, Master of Darkness. These really are wallet eaters. And 7000 euros? For an XJ40? Lol, never. That one looks to be in amazingly good shape, but that kind of money will buy you an X300/X308 XJR in the same condition, and they're simply much better cars.
The design has aged well. Very crisp and tight. Still, I prefer the curvier, early versions. Buying one in great condition is probably well worth the premium price. I'm sure the price of major service items is the stuff of nightmares, though nowhere near Ferrari territory.
If you can do the work yourself, they're astonishingly cheap to work on. But if you can't do the work, Jaguar shop rates are insane and will eat you alive. For instance, one of the heater hoses on my 2000 XJR started leaking. You'd think this wouldn't be a big deal, but some genius decided to run the hoses from the front of the engine, through the valley, and underneath the supercharger, so you basically have to take the whole top end of the engine apart to get at them. So for me, who can do that fairly easy, it was just a pair of $12 dollar hoses and a weekend. I got some quotes to have the work done, and the cheapest was $900 in labor. Another was one of the front wheel bearings. For me it was a $55 bearing, a $35 specialized tool rental, and about 3 hours. Cheapest I was quoted for labor was $600. So if you can do heavy work yourself, they are an incredible car on the cheap. If you can't, they are greedy wallet vampires.
I think you can make the same case about most any car. It would be interesting to find who has the cheapest parts, but requires the most labor hours, plus factoring for highest overhead and markup. Fer instance, my car seems to have been built around the heater core. It's four flat rate hours just to be able to see the thing. I hear Porsche's old roller bearing six required something like twenty hours to adjust the valves.