On a trip with my friend Michel today in the Beaujolais wine country, Madame being absent "en Angleterre".

We stopped for a picnic between tastings (Michel junior was doing the driving) and a lovely little black cat appeared from nowhere as we were eating, walked on its points past the XJS, but then decided to look back. Now everyone knows that cats are the most self-centred creatures on the planet, so I took this as a great compliment to the car!

Before

After: Everyone knows that animals are excellent judges of character; but it seems of cars too.

Bonnet open to let out the heat - essential with an XJS V12. But what a car!

 

Now everyone knows that cats are the most self-centred creatures on the planet, so I took this as a great compliment to the car!

Greg, That's true, but they are also very discriminating.
Who wouldn't look back?

 

Especially as it's RED!!
(';')

 

Best wheels Jag ever offered on the XJS....

 

100% true; and by a country mile at that!

 

And the wine . . . . . .

 

I'm impressed how you apparently fit three people into the XJS....
I also assume France, or at least this part, isn't the sort of place you're likely to leave the bonnet open and come back to find missing parts, or rubbish tossed in there.
And while the black cat may have looked back, the red cat treated the other with quiet disdain, it seems. Not reacting at all....

 

SDSD
FYI, the seating in the pre-facelifts and within in that category only in the original layout (ie not even including the Recaro seat semi-facelift cars) is significantly better able to take rear seat passengers. I have often travelled in the back of mine, facing forward, behind Madame's front seat adjusted for her (5' 3").
In a 3.6 litre pre-facelift but later model with the Recaro seats and Ford switchgear that I was loaned for a bit, this was impossible.
This is yet another example of Hutber's Law: All improvements make things worse!

 

I see you have the quad lights Greg. Did you decide not to swap them out in the end?

 

The correct one-piece continental-dipping lights for LHD steering cars, are unobtainable. By sheer chance I did find a NoS pair years and years ago in the UK for almost nothing, but I was too chicken to fit them, when I moved to France. Instead I bought a set of quad light units from someone in the USA (the SNGB new ones were beyond my budget) and fitted new actual light units to replace the USA 2 candle-power sealed beams. I think I prefer the one-piece units; but I have grown accustomed to the quads now.
I recently sold the one-pieces for a fair price which did something to finance the hobby!
Even the 5 3/4 inch one-piece units themselves, which were used in just about every car made in the UK and Europe for decades, are becoming very hard to find in continental dipping format from reputable makers, though there are loads of far East knock-offs with hopeless beam patterns. As these are a certain MoT failure if cracked, I bought a spare set as insurance.

 

Hutber's Law.
I'm gonna remember that one!!
Thanks, Greg, you've Totally made my day!
(';')

 

Coined by one Patrick Hutber, a columnist in the financial area on the upmarket daily newspaper in the UK, The Daily Telegraph, in the late 1950s and 1960s. 100% true.

 

I completely agree!
Diamond Turned Five Spoke 16 inch.
They came stock on my 94 6.0, coupe.
I don't care for Wires, Star Fish or chrome plated wheels on any XJS.
Lattice wheels are fine but a PITA to maintain.

 

Being pedantic (sorry!), the 5-spokes with the groove across each spoke, as fitted to Greg's car, were painted. It was the later 5-spokes without the groove (UK 1994.75 MY from April 1994) that had the diamond-cut faces. I have those on my AJ16 Convertible. I'm biased but they are my favourite wheel (apart from the recessed wheel nut diamond-cut 20 spokes on the 6 litre!).

Of course it may have been different on US-destined cars!

Paul