It's time to say goodbye to the best car I've ever owned ♥️




I've had her up for private sale but honestly I don't want to let her go, so I haven't been pushing that sale as hard as I could have... just a few facebook posts and that's about it. I'm moving to Japan soon and I've procrastinated too long, so she's been delivered to an online car auction seller and she'll be someone else's baby in a couple of weeks. I'm told the auction will be live early next week, so I'll add a link to the marketplace post and my signature when it goes up.

I spent two years trying to find the best XES in Australia and this is what I ended up with... since then she's been detailed, cared for, maintained well over factory spec (i.e. diff/AT/supercharger oils replaced at 100k), and improved with a full Dynamat sound deadening plus some comfort stuff like Android Auto, LEDs, etc. Genuinely the nicest car I've ever owned and also might be the best handling road car I've ever driven, I'm gonna miss this one 😢😢

Thanks to the forum for all the info, I must've spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours on here reading and learning about Jags both before and after I bought this car. I hope I can add some knowledge and experience to the forum by saying this - if you have the chance to dynamat your doors, do it. The audio quality improved and I'm so happy I did it that I'm going to have to do it to every car I buy from now on (RIP my wallet).

I never finished the carbon fibre engine cover project either 😢 I still have the mould so I might get after it one day, but there are about 500 projects already on the 'one day' list hahaha

 

Good luck in Japan! I’ve enjoyed reading of your adventures over the years.

 

In Japan you can buy another jag.

 

Thanks! Plenty more adventures to come, just not likely to involve a jaaaag haha. The dream is to build a track car and compete in either hillclimb or circuit racing, but Japan's motor racing scene is pretty average these days... there's a good national karting series though, I raced karts when I was a teenager and always wanted to get back into them so that might be where I start

I'm moving to a part of Japan that gets snow for about six months a year, an XE would be a terrible car for that area as it'd spend at least six months a year in the garage. Considering a Land Rover but the roads and the salt are very harsh, so I probably won't drive anything that's got any real value... a little kei car or a beaten up old truck is a much better choice for this part of my life!

 

You have an opportunity to own some weird JDM stuff. Take it !

Also thanks for your tutorials here ;-)

 

I will! I have a new blog at dangoesfast.com - it's literally just getting started (like two weeks ago) so it's very very simple and there's not much there, but eventually it'll become the place I post about all racing-related or gofast stuff. I really love writing tutorials and info posts, the blog is where a lot of those will go so keep an eye on it if you want to see more (although they're not likely to be jag related!)

 

https://www.carbids.com.au/c/allbids...-v6-30-1626595

She's been photographed and posted, it's really happening 😢 Auction starts in a few days and will run for two weeks.

They forgot to mention a few things in the ad but the good stuff is in my sig

 

Good luck Dan. Always really enjoyed your excellent contributions at the other XE forum. I no longer go there either, for similar reasons to yours. Enjoy your time in Japan!

I'm on my second XE now, one of the last production run, and I can see no reason to get rid of it ever. Nothing has come out since which combines 4 door saloon with sports handling like an XE. It was developed with challenging British roads in mind and its handling poise for public roads is exceptional. And that's before we start on what passes for modern tech-heavy car interiors. Ugh. Driven enough of them and don't like them.

Good luck with whatever you drive next.

 

I really wanted to do more with this car and contribute regularly to that forum.. I had a ton of ideas for hot up parts and the means to produce and distribute them, but when I was cut off from that audience I didn't really have anyone to share them with so I put my energy into other projects. I tried a couple of small projects here but the XE following is much smaller and pretty much nobody was interested, so none ever really got off the ground. At the time I was in the process of selling a company to fund my next adventure so I had a large budget to put into building a company making innovative parts and products for the XE, but Phil and his ego managed to put a stop to that 😂😂 I ended up going into something else and all those ideas will probably die in a notebook

That being said, Jags are pretty cheap in Japan so you still might see me swap in the 5l V8 one day

The handling is definitely my favourite part of this car too, I have tried and TRIED to get her to understeer but she just won't do it! I haven't had the chance to drive an AWD XE yet, I loved mine but I always wondered if she'd be even better in AWD..

 

Yeah, a great shame you didn't get the chance for all those XE jobs. A sorry situation really. Ah well.

XEs are popular enough in the UK (though lacking the more active fanbase of the F-Type, as an example) and it was encouraging to see 30+ at the Gaydon Motor Museum last year as part of a larger Jaguar day. I live in hope that there will be a loyal base for them as they age.

I think we agree on the combination of packaging and handling, it's pretty much unique. I went for a RWD new car as on the facelifted AWD cars the front visibly sits higher and once seen, this cannot be unseen. I toyed with the idea of getting an older V8 F-Type for a moment, but was put off the idea by local speed cameras. In SE England, automated cameras are littered everywhere. I picked up two fines (with points) within a couple of weeks of each other last year, one for doing 37 mph in a 30 and one for 57 in a 50 zone on an temporary motorway restriction. Both offences were nuts, given the conditions. But 2 more and it's a ban. So the idea of moving to a car faster than one I have that is already limited to 155pmh is a bit silly, for the road at least. I did scratch the V8 itch in a different way though, by adding a 2006 Merc SLK55 AMG to my collection. It has a naturally aspirated V8 and no tech. Lots of buttons and dials, bliss! Its suspension is unsophisticated against the XE and its NVH orders of magnitudes worse. But that's not the point, it sounds marvellous, even if it does crash and bounce over roads that the XE handles with poise and agility.

A V8 Jag in Japan? XFs live there I am sure, or F-Types.
I have done a couple of track days in F-Types and the AWD V8s are sublime, way more capable than my own skills could really explore. But a track is not a road.
Fingers crossed they don't have the British obsession with automated speed cameras in Japan.

 

Such is life mate, I was in a great position at the time with a bunch of opportunities to choose from and ended up going the way I went. That direction was much more boring but also easier and more reliable haha.

Japan uses speed cameras mostly on the motorways, honestly in five years of living there I still haven't quite figured out if they care or don't care about speeding. You got me thinking about it so I did some googling... Wikipedia says "A threshold for speed cameras in Japan is set at a minimum of 39 km/h (24 mph) above the limit on an expressway and a minimum of 29 km/h (18 mph) above the limit on other streets, where drivers will face criminal charges instead of traffic infractions. This is due to legal precedents dating back to 1969 restricting police from filming an individual unless a criminal offence is immediately being committed."

This makes complete sense cause I see people doing 100-110 on 80km/h motorways and always wondered about it. The cops also have to have their lights going when they're driving around (even if they're not doing anything) so you can see them from miles away. It all makes sense now!

A Merc might be a better-supported car in Japan... honestly though, I'm going to the north island where it snows for half the year, so my next car is likely to be a 4wd hiace or something like a Hilux, Pajero, etc... I think the part of my life where I owned a sick street car might be over, at least for now 🤣 I plan to race but it'll likely be karts or some sort of cheap category for a while, at least until I get established.

 

Well, that's a different drive for sure. But makes perfect sense for the conditions. XEs on snow are rubbish

And those Japanese speed fine rules are really different! That would be 94mph (150kmh) on a motorway or 48 mph in a town if applied to the UK. For an instant ban, an actual 100mph is probably needed in the UK, but the difference for us is the lower tier of cash-generating fines with 3-6 points (you get 12 in total). It's HUGE business in the UK. We can get away with 10% over the indicated speed limit plus between 3 and 5 mph depending upon region. It's very easy to exceed that in a modern car in good conditions.

 

UPDATE: if there's anyone here that's bidding on the car, the tyres have been swapped for a USED set but with roadworthy tread.... so the car now has a passed blue slip and is ready for rego.

I'd probably suggest the new owner still puts a new set of tyres on at some stage, but at least this set means it can be registered and driven immediately

 

Best of luck!

 

She didn't make the reserve first time around, but got there second time around so she's on her way to someone else

I have the original set of floormats that have been used but cleaned (I put new ones in when I bought it) - $100
Also EuroAMP heater pipe upgrade V2 full kit with water pump, manifold, everything - $600

Will post them aus-wide free of charge