I found her in north west Victoria in July 2017 when I was finally in a position to afford the time and money to get my dream car, and it has been wonderful. (I was driven to my yr10 dinner in an XJ Series II Jaguar and fell in love with Jags, then went with my Dad to a Dealer, sat in an XJS and wanted one ever since.) It was a country car I purchased with 178,000kms and had been on Club Reg for a few years. This is a genuinely unmolested Jaguar V12 grand tourer. (I’m a member of the Jaguar Owner’s Club of Victoria) Yes, these were famous for racing but my aim has always been to enjoy this vehicle as close to how it was originally intended as possible, i.e. like driving on a cloud. I’ve enjoyed restoring this a lot, and have lost countless hours getting things ‘just right’, e.g. replacing the vinyl lining of the centre console (June 2021), or sanding and redoing the oil filler cap (March 2018), or retouching the letters on the boot (May 2021). The aim was never to diminish how well the car was engineered and designed to begin with. The timber dashboard is real timber. The leather interior is real leather. During restoration work I’ve occasionally had new parts made from scratch to match the original as closely as possible if a part was not available, e.g. a new machined adjustment bracket for the passenger seat (Nov 2022, Custom Cuts Tasmania) or having the headlight mounting clips 3D printed and sent out from England (Nov 2021). After more than five years and some really beautiful driving, I’m updating to something newer and she now needs a new home. I am in no hurry to sell. Work done: Injectors removed, sent for reconditioning, reinstalled and tested. (Sept 2017 - Kerang Mechanical Repairs) Compression tested and was good on all cylinders (Sept 2017, Kerang Mechanical Repairs) New Rear Shocks (Dec 2017) New Brake pads front and rear, new front Rotors (July 2018) Remote central locking fitted (Sep 2018, Guests Auto Electrical) New washer pump and reservoir (Sep 2018). Passenger’s side headlamp removed and sent for re-chroming. It was eventually shipped back to me re-silvered owing to the shop actually not being able to re-chrome it - which makes it a slightly different tint to the other (Dec 2018 - Bendigo Electro Plating) New horn (There is a horn button mounted in the dash which was added before me)(Mar 2019) New bushes on front passenger’s suspension (Sept 2019) Two new thermostats, one on each bank including coolant flush (October 2019) New starter motor (Dec 2019) New Steering Rack (Jan 2020 - Supasteer Wonga Park) New battery (Feb 2021 - Guests Auto Electrical) Battery position moved to accomodate larger battery with better cranking amps which involved having a custom floor made for the boot including colour-matched fabric sourced to redo 60% of the boot. 2 New front tyres & Front Steering Alignment (June 2021 - Tyrepower Pakenham) New speakers installed in doors, new speaker grills installed as similar to the originals as I could find (June 2021) New vinyl lining around the automatic gear shifter (June 2021) Currently has a new Sports steering wheel and new Boss kit fitted. Original Steering Wheel included. Modern space saver spare included along with full sized (very good condition) original spare. Internal lights, indicators & brake lights changed to brighter LED globes Others: Oil pan gasket and transmission gasket I bought in early 2018 but haven’t needed. Extra pair of throttle bodies I bought out of America in late 2019 but haven’t needed.
