Can someone help me to come up with a better term for 'pre-H.E.'?
How about 'T.I.' for terribly inefficient? Or XJ-S Series I? Or 'BBC' for black bumper car?

 

LE: Low Efficiency.

 

OK that begs the question , who buys 12 cylinder car for efficiency?

 

Before I had a V12 I really thought I would care about gas mileage. Once I learned how to run an XJ-S V12 through the gears manually, I learned that I really don't care. The only thing I use the gas mileage for is as an indicator of whether the engine runs right.

 

XJS Ancienne d'Elegance

 

At 2000 miles per year, I'm not bothered. At 15k miles, I would be. Not so much about the cost, but more about the carbon emissions. Anyway, I think these cars are best used as second cars anyway, for so many reasons.

 

I'm confused. Why do you call the pre-HE "black bumper" cars? As far as I know, they all had black bumpers right up until the late facelifts, circa 1994.

I'd probably called the pre-HEs "Flatheads" myself.

 

The pre HEs (LEs, as Steve so wittily suggested) had large black bumpers with no chrome blades on them. In my view, the large black bumpers, spoil the look of the car and argue visually with the innate delicacy of the design.

 

Huh. So they did. Or rather, so they didn't.
Personally I prefer the chrome - the car uses chrome generously elsewhere, after all. Makes the bumpers look a bit more old-school.

 

In German, you could use 'Ur-XJ-S' which, with the prefix Ur- would make it like 'great grandparents' (Ur-Großeltern).

What about Jurrasic-JS?

 

 

I broke that mould long ago.

Our PreHE S2 Sedan did 450000kms in 18 years, and the XJS HE did 265000 in the same time period.

Both daily drivers, as have been ALL my Jags since 1968, and distances here are HUGE.

Fuel it is a requirement for maximum enjoyment, and what better enjoyment than a V12 at 5500RPM on the open road, hour after hour.

As for the Topic, not much into names etc. The S2 was known as Sir Arthur, after the original dignitary that owned the car before us. The XJS, simply, The Red One.

"Flat head" kind of slides off the tongue better than some of the other suggestions.

 

I suspect that possibly it's not a good day for mother earth when I idle all 10 at the same time.

 

SD
My post was ambiguous. I meant that the in-chrome-bladed black bumpers argued with the car's delicate lines. I find the chrome bladed HE bumpers far better.

 

Too right Grant. Use them as much as possible, a gallon of fuel brings more smiles than any other 5 quid's worth! They are not museum pieces!
Greg

 

Ah, right, yes, that makes sense Greg.

 

Well, they were referred to as the "S-type" early on, but do you really think thats better?

 

If I had my choice I would go with a thin chrome bumper that looks gorgeous and is completely useless. One of the early X-S design studies had that.

As far as names goes I like flathead best.

 

Like what?

 

Agreed, and I reckon "fear factor".

Too many see this V12, and the car its shoved in as frail, oops.

Then the fact sooooooo many V12's are NOT running properly, and this dulls the experience seriously.

A V12 that is ON SONG, and UP TO SNUFF, as some say, is a thing of beauty and sends chills up the spine.

Mine regularly traverse dirt toads, corrugations, stones, the odd Wombat, and bull dust holes, and thats summer in 45c temps, and they survive well.

I suppose its MY Ozzie attitude at its best. FAITH, ya gotta have FAITH.

The current S Types, not so good in those conditions, so I am relooking at another X300R, or maybe a S2 V12 Daimler.

A quick release on the bad leg would have an XJS back in the fleet in less than a heartbeat, but medical technology is still working on that one.