Coming out of SAMs yesterday, I found a brand spanking new white XF huddled up beside my 05 XJ8L, as if trying to get warm .

As would have it, the new owner--a young senior lady approached, got in and started to drive away. I stopped her and asked how she was enjoying the car. She was very pleasant and said it was her fourth Jaguar and didn't know if she was going to like the all white, but was starting to really enjoy it. I know why--it was beautiful. Said she had traded in her last one while on a drive up north to visit her son. Said the one she traded in was a 2012 something or other, didn't really know, but it had less then 25K on it--she thought. Sounds like a girl that salesmen just love to see pull into the lot.

What really got my attention was that a beautiful LEOPARD was perched on the nose of the bonnet, just like it should be. That really set the car off.

After I got back home, I was still thinking about that car, and remembered that I had read somewhere--maybe here on the forum, that Jaguar stopped putting the Leopard on the new car's back in 09. Still wondering, I just looked up all the new Jags and none of them had a leopard on the nose. I didn't ask, but I'm guessing it was a dealer install.

Anyway, end of story, but I still think Jaguar has lost a truly wonderful tradition when the decision was made to eliminate the Leopard. It truly looked beautiful on that car and to others, there was no doubt what kind of beautiful car it was.

Cheers

 

Leopard ... LEOPARD ...it's a Panthera Onca, commonly called ... a Jaguar. Jaguars are found in South America and as far up NA as Mexico and occasionally, Texas.

Leopards are Panthera Pardus. Leopards are found in Africa and across southern Asia.

 

!!!! Surely he meant LEAPER!

 

Ah ... yes ... now they are found all over the world

 

Hell, a "leaper" could be anything from a frog to a man . A "Leopard" is as stated above--a "compact and well muscled animal".
I know what Jaguar and people call the hood emblem on the early Jaguars, but on my car it is a "Jaguar"-- A compact and well muscled animal". Maybe a leaping Jaguar, but none the less, a Jaguar.
I have tried to look at this emblem from every direction and a "frog" or a "man" it is not.
How it became know as a Leaper is beyond me. But if youall want to call it a Leaper, that's fine with me.

 

Because the animal appears to be "leaping" over something. Just as the emblem on the steering wheel is called a growler because the animal appears to be growling.

 

Meow?

 

I propose a new sub-species ... Panthera Aluminium Coventrensis

 

Give him a break. His auto correct doesn't know anything about great cars.

 

Are you saying a 'leaper Cat' looks better on the XF than the XJ? I've never seen one on the XF but the ones on the XJ looked really tacky!

 

Which of the following 'leaping Cats' do you find the purrrtiest?



XJ8



S-Type



XK8



XK



XF



XJ

 

S-type... All other look out of place

 

To answer the original question.... yes, I believe that the lady's Jaguar hood ornament on her new XF was a dealer install.

For the North American market, Jaguar no longer assembles the ornament on the assembly line for the new models.