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One day, many years back, I saw a midnight black Jaguar XJ-S parked in front of a hotel in Dubai. It looked extremely smug sitting there, and the sparkling lights of the hotel and the city were reflected on its long and svelte bodywork. It was the first time I saw it in the flesh, and it had the effect of stopping me in my track. Even in the exoticar-filled emirate, I was smitten seeing one. I walked around the car, took in all the details and dropped saliva on its quirky, almost Italian lines. An ironic reaction, considering the XJ-S was in fact criticised harshly for looking the way it did. But unlike cruel automotive journalists who pass judgement on contemporary cars, those who write about classics have the benefit of hindsight :)
Fast forward to the present. Mumbai, during rush hour, is a bitch. But I had a Cat with me. Yes, eight long years since that first encounter with the XJ-S in another land, here I was, driving an example from 1981. But right in the middle of peak traffic. It can be quite a pain even in a modern day car, so I had my apprehensions sitting behind the wheel of a proper 12-cylinder engined, near quarter-century old automobile. Well, it was a three-speed automatic, so shifting an aged, clunky gearbox was not one of my problems. Um, actually, I had no problems at all. The Jaguar’s V12 was so smooth and sublime that it was purring around like a domesticated pussycat in its owner’s lap. Amazing. There was none of the barely reined-in anger of a high performance motor, no discomfort while staying in the low rev zone, none of the hardly restrained flood of horses. It was so well-behaved that I suspected that the owner of the car had engaged valet mode, shutting off one bank of cylinders! It had no such feature of course, it’s just that this jewel of British engineering had all the attributes of British civil behaviour too – stiff upper lip, courage under pressure and the like.
Pootling around, waiting for traffic to clear a bit, I glance at my surroundings. Having seen and driven earlier Jaguars, I was surprised to see how un-Jag the interior was. Instead of the neat, classic layout comprising round Smiths gauges, this one had upright, rectangular displays, except for the large speedo and the rev counter, while switches were scattered around all over. If not for the black leather and wood veneer, you could mistake the interior for that of an American barge. Actually, the wood and leather treatment was absent in the XJ-S in its initial days, and made it appearance only in 1981 – the XJ-S was launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show back in 1975. And with its spindly T-shaped gear lever, you could mistake it for any other American car. Sacrilegious! It would take Jaguar 16 years to give the interiors a thorough makeover (along with a comprehensive exterior facelift too – this, from a company that tweaked the perfect looks of the XK and E-Type every four-five years!).
I found the passenger compartment cosy – it’s quite a low-slung car, you see – but taller drivers would find it almost claustrophobic. The rear two seats are an excuse, even a breadbox would find it uncomfortable back there. Besides, those flying buttresses – a design feature that would be an integral part of an Italian supercar, but downright bizarre in a dyed-in-the-wool British grand tourer – do hamper rear visibility, but it’s something you can eventually get used to living with.
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