Must be a generational thing or a hot rodder thing, or the industrial designer in me, but I usually end up shaving off extraneous emblems and chrome doodads. No badges on the rear of my car, no "unleaded" tag, no antenna. No mudflaps, stainless wheel arches, sunvisors, or foxtails. Just the lines of the car with form following function for the most part. There should be a special place reserved in hell for the guy who designed fake chrome stick-on portholes.

To my eyes, leapers just don't fit the lines on this model. It detracts from an XJS almost as badly as they do on an XKE or XK8.

BTW, I was going to completely remove the badge on the hood, but decided instead to use a repro XK120 badge. It's copper and porcelain and is slightly smaller than the XJS badge. It's been developing a nice patina as it ages and gets polished.

 

I have a red classic edition convertible 91 and I put a small leaper on it. A 24 kt. gold plated leaper that is, Now were talkin class!! Bud

 

Just had my 88 painted black from red and love it even more! Changed out the wheel centers to the gold growler, added the side leaper emblems with the gold cats, replaced bonnet badge with gold growler.
Changed out the grille to the face lift and changed quad headlamps to euro glass
SO, I had ordered the gold small leaper for my xtype and now thinking about installing on my XJS.
Love the gold accents on the black car!

I agree about the modern leaper badge on the mesh grill. Needs to go. Let the leaper be the focal point!

 

Lets see some pics of it.

 

here is my front view, nothing on the nose,a clean look, and two MATTE black stripes down the hood!
say anything you want,BUT it gets a lot of kool comments, none bad.

bar grill is simple and gives a lower & wider look, wide tires are for stance!

 

pic of front

 

Heck, following mustangsix ideas, NO external door handles(key fob opener),

nothing on trunk except the Union Jack.

 

I seem to have troubles getting pics on. I can download to an album but to download to a post, I need a URL! Which I don't!!
But, check out my profile albums of my XF. I black packed it! And added paino black leaper.
I'm working on new pics of the XJS for an album too.

 

Man! Where'd you get those headlights?!?!
I've got a set I've separated the glass from housing and now have a new goal!!

 

No badges on mine except blacked out leapers on the sides, and blacked out growler on bonnet (eyes painted red, and teeth white).

 

The leaper is still a dealer option even for the new XF and XJ. Just go to any dealer website and it's there under accessories.
I'm curious as to when the bonnet leaper was banned in UK due to pedestrian injuries. I was always told that's when the leaper actually stopped being used on jaguars but still available in states.

 

Eh. I don't like the leaper on the XJS. I agree with the post that suggested it looked a bit "phallic". It looks fine on the other cars, but not the XJS in my opinion.

It's nice if you like it, though. I always like to see people enjoy personalizing their cars.

I'll again agree that the grille looks like a Cadillac grille, but only because of the badge. Without that, I might like it more. Where did it come from? Does somebody make those?

It doesn't matter what I like, though. What matters is whether or not you like it.

The growler on my hood is the blackish/bronzish thing. I don't know what color it's supposed to be, or if it was kind of a mish-mash from the factory. It looks nice, in it's own way, and appears to have been deliberate, but I'd like to see something that matches.

I'll be buying one from Ebay soon, and having it chromed to match the rest of the trim.

If it doesn't look good, I'll not have spoiled any original parts.

 

[QUOTE=MustangSix;638102]Must be a generational thing or a hot rodder thing, or the industrial designer in me, but I usually end up shaving off extraneous emblems and chrome doodads.[QUOTE]

I tend to do that as well, but there are some cool details on the XJS. I would like to try the modern Jaguar lettering on the trunk, but I haven't been able to find all the modern letters required to make "XJS".

This latest generation of modern Jags seems to have larger letters. The past generation lettering might fit very nicely.

 

[QUOTE=kennith13;647259][QUOTE=MustangSix;638102]Must be a generational thing or a hot rodder thing, or the industrial designer in me, but I usually end up shaving off extraneous emblems and chrome doodads.I also preferred the more modern letters and emblems and actually changed out all of the wheel centers and front badge with my original new XF pieces. The new style growler but it just didn't read well on it. I also used my extra flat boot leaper on the top of the boot, laying flat, like the prancing horse on a Ferarri. It actually looked better but still too modern.
As for the finish on the original growler, it came in two colors. A blackened bronze or on calibration edition, 24k gold. I've seen one in all chrome (custom) and it was so bright, you couldn't see the growler very well. It needs the background blacked out with chrome.

 

Ronbros, where did you get your front grill?

 

Well, Car going back to body shop to have bonnet worked on. I took off the gold growler to install the gold leaper and the badge put a perminent circle on the new finish! I then drilled the hole for the new spring loaded leaper and installed to see if I liked it, which I LOVE it! And In that ten minutes I had it on, not even tight, IT put a mar in the paint above the circle!! UGH!!
I did find out that's why most factory (at time of purchase) installed leapers actually keep the growler below. The growlers usually left a ring even from the factory so the dealers couldn't put the leaper in that location without repainting the hood.

 

bar style grill from an aftermarket chevy pickup truck,

any good hot rod shop,or auto stores!

i bought it with an upper and lower bar stack, as i remember ,i used only the upper bars.

 

Thanks. Good to know.

 

Phihef, Are the growler badges just glued on? I want to remove mine and install a small leaper. Just wondering if there is a hole under there.
Thanks, RagJag

 

The xjs bonnet badge has a screw and a rubber gasket. The screw is awkward but not too bad to get at. If you are replacing with a leaper you may run into the old issue of a permanent circular impression left by the growler badge. There is one leaper available on eBay that has a modified round base to fit perfectly over the circle. Be warned, it's a BIG cat!
The new growler badges are all held on with a 3m tape. The side wing badges are held with tabs and 3m tape.
Hope this helps.