2006 XJR --- Can someone tell me definitively if wood trim is real, a veneer, plastic?

 

It is real wood veneer.

Even Bentley and Roll-Royce cars use veneer, even though it may be glued on top of another piece of wood. However most wood veneer is now glued onto metal panels.

For older cars like the 1960s saloons the dash panels were made up from 1/2" plywood, then veneered on top. If you take the wood in a Mark 2, (all 26 pieces of it, only a very few pieces are genuine hardwood without any veneering.

In the 70s (or it may have been the 80s), a glue was developed that allowed wood veneer to be glued onto a metal base. My Rover 75 had a genuine walnut veneer dash, with a few pieces of very convincing "walnut" below it. Later on greed came to the fore with Rover management and the veneer part became plastic.

 

nationalforest.org | Business Success Stories - Jaguar Cars Ltd

Link to Jaguar sponsored English walnut forest.

 

Looks more like the faux wood plastic in my dad's old 80s Toyota T18, than the wood in his Mark 2.

 

All the wood trim parts in the 60s Jaguar saloons was produced at their main factory at Browns Lane in Coventry. Although the later cars had a lot less wood trim, I have seen craftsmen in the "saw mill" inserting white box-wood inserts into the veneered dash panels during a visit in the late-80s to Browns Lane. This box wood was used to give a nice contrasting appearance to the walnut parts.

PS - it was always called the "saw mill" because at one time SS Cars and Jaguar only produced wood-framed bodies to put onto Standard chassis. It was only in the late 30s that steel-bodied cars were produced by Jaguar. The "saw mill" then only produced trim parts.

 

I believe the steering wheel is simulated wood.

 

Hmm, I think it is wood, as it is always described in the brochures as "wood-rimmed steering wheel", and if it isn't, they are opening themselves up to a lot of bad publicity and even law suits. My wheel certainly feels cold and "woody". If it were plastic I suspect it would not feel so cold in winter ! On my old Rover 75 only the dash panel was wood the rest of the "wood" trim was plastic, but a really excellent lookalike. I did install the wood-rim wheel on that car too.

I do remember refinishing the 26, (yes, 26) pieces of wood trim in the Mark 2 I rebuilt in the 80s. I actually took a photo of all 26 pieces on a white sheet, but unfortunately this was long ago and I have lost those photos.

Incidentally, some years ago, I went round the Bentley factory here in Crewe and in the trim shop they showed us pieces of wood trim that after production, they couldn't fit because they showed evil faces or suchlike. This happened when the veneers were mirror-matched in production, and it was only noticed once varnish was applied.

 

That's interesting; my 05 XJR wood trim above the glovebox has an image in the book matched wood that quite clearly looks like a skull. I think it's very nifty.

 

When I had a tour of Bentley Motors a few years ago, they showed us pieces of trim like that. They are pulled out of production use before they potentially upset the new owner.