Not odd at all. If you could describe in one word what William Lyons stood for, it would be value. The Etype represented an insane value, you just could not buy a trendier, prettier car, at any price, and it was affordable. The new ones got away from that as the British car industry declined.

What is odd is that you sought out a 944 in this day and age, Sanford & Sons would junk that. You did not have far to travel to find reliability, any car but 944.

 

Great choice! I also have the caramel interior. The Wife thought the F-Type was nice until she saw that it had no back seat and said it is just too small and cramped. Like Q&C says it is nice to have the rear to toss whatever in the back.

When I was a kid I dug the 944 and had a buddy after college that bought a turbo. I wouldn't give it the fit-and-finish prize but it was fun.

 

Well, I think it started with the first street legal car I was handed the keys to go take for a drive was a Porsche 944. I'd driven race cars at the time, but not a street legal car. At fourteen, that made a huge impression, I started saving up.

I was also into Ferrari's, so with the 944, I spent 40% of what I saved up by age 18, and had put the other 60% invested to buy a Ferrari when I was 35. Somewhere in my mid 20's I realized I liked my 944 more than a Ferrari, and continued quite content in 944 ownership.

That is until I had the realization I really didn't have the physical build to match the Italian sized, Italian made, seats that are standard in a 944. The 911's multi way adjustable really won me over to a more modern car. While not standard on the 911, these are standard on the XK. It makes shopping for an XK very fast, as the only "real" options to speak of are XKR, XK, and Portfolio. Porsche is maddening in the options list. With the Jaguar, find the color combination you want, and go buy it.

I wouldn't call the 944 un-reliable, no more than any other car of the period, lots of rubber parts dry-rotting are the principle enemy I face with the 944. I enjoy working on the car, but the need to get it done in an evening or week end added unneeded stress.

Tampa, they are indeed fun to drive, especially in slick conditions.

 

LOL!!! That's hilarious!

 

We would never admit in a month of Sundays that our attraction to something manmade is actually based on the fantasy we have in our minds and not reality nor utility. The reality such as 510hp is just there to give us something to rationalize our obsession.

The guy who buys a Fiero to put a 1000lb Countach body on it may not be as dumb as we think- in fact, he is closer to his fantasy than we are ours.

Is a mechanical watch that adds weight to your arm really better than the digital Asian one that is 100% accurate. Or have the Swiss worked very hard to cultivate our dreams and desires.

It really makes sense to buy that which fulfills the fantasy and image you have in your mind. And if you buy something that you dont have a delusions about, learn its backstory and it will make your purchase twice as enjoyable. The most incredible thing about Jaguar is that there is so much in terms of history to build an image in one's mind.

The fool is not the Francophile who buys the Citroen, but the Citroen owner who is not a Francophile.

 

Q+C, I think you are too much the romantic. The guys with the plastic fantastic Fiero wants what he can't have and instead accepts a poor facsimile of the real thing. It doesn't make him a better person, only a weaker one.

In our generation Jags you find the real thing, possibly the last of the real thing with romantic history attached vs. the plastic fantastic 'F' types where the designer even says that Jaguar needed to step away from the restraints of it's history and move into the future for the company to survive.

 

The less the wood, the less the Jag in my opinion.

 

It was a perfect storm Ranchero, that happens once in a lifetime, when something new has just enough new blood to make an improvement and just enough of the old DNA to let you appreciate it.

 

I don't know who you are quoting, but it's b******s anyway. I had a long, long love affair with the Citroen CX, but I was never a Francophile. Indeed, I don't care for the French; their main national characteristic seems to be an enormous, overweening and largely unjustified conceit about France and all things French. France? Lovely country; shame about the natives...

The CXs met my needs at the time, and they pleased me, but they were still only cars. The sole 'need' that the XK meets is that it pleases me; I have other cars for other purposes, though they too please me, or I'd not have them.

The XK does not define me, any more than I define it. It does not fulfil a dream, nor is/was it aspirational. I do not anthropomorphise it either; it's just a car. A nice car, which I like, but still just a car.

There's a lot of chaff in this thread concealing the gold.

 

I was quoting Marylin Monroe, she was twice as smart.

Wouldn't you agree that a Francophile would enjoy that French car more than you?

You are not far off when you imply that any car is just a car. But that's precisely the point, what are the things that please us and for what true reason. What was your love affair with the Citroen cx

 

I'm pretty sure the Marilyn Monroe who married Arthur Miller never said any such thing; perhaps there is another I have never heard of? Than whom was she twice as smart, exactly?

It might be that a Francophile would enjoy a CX more than I did; if it was solely because it was a French car, that would be simple prejudice, and nothing to do with the car's qualities.

I liked the quirkiness of the CXs (seven of them), and the way they drove; they met my needs, and they pleased me. 'Love affair' is perhaps a figure of speech in this context. They were still, at the end of the day, just cars.

 

Truth be told, there has never been much of a difference in the type of person that buys a Jaguar. The brand has always been a niche market vehicle in the upper price range. Thus precluding itself from most, save the middle-age male of means.

A simple examination of the X100 & X150 new car sales figures in North America will demonstrate the very limited market to which the vehicle appealed to.

http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01...s-figures.html

Of note should be the 2010 redesigned X150 5.0L engine car. Note the zero impact on sales of the very costly R&D that went into it. JLR is very fortunate that they use the 5.0L engine across many different vehicles.

The X150 5.0L car is no doubt a classic that will be desired for many years to come. It is a marvel of engineering, combining power, grace, reliability and almost everything a driver would want in a car experience. What led to it's demise is simply a lack of new-car sales. Why it didn't sell very well could be due to a number of factors. High initial MSRP, the economic down-turn of 2009, the release of the F-Type by JLR in direct competition, etc.
No matter the actual reason for the declining sales prior to JLR discontinuing the X150, the fact is that X150 buyers and Jaguar car buyers in general, are a very small and well defined group.
(Insert picture of Q&C here.)

 

I curiously question whether any of our reasons are more legitimate than the other's subjective needs or illusions. Since the end-goal is so varied. For instance no one buys a Ferrari for transportation, quite smooth comfort, fuel economy, passenger and cargo capabilities, ergonomics, reliability and ease of repair. By those metric it would be an abysmal failure. I ponder really who among us has the right end of the stick. I am leaning towards, he who has the greatest delusion since its all an illusion anyways.

It is for those reasons I can understand your rationale behind liking the CX. I remember it well, it was a yacht, complete with the controls.

I have been told I am strong as an ox and twice as smart.

 

I could tell from day one that my car was actually a guinea pig for technologies intended for another vehicle altogether. It was effectively a long-term prototype for the Ftype. More notably that all the advertising resources had been funneled to the Ftype and this was an inconvenient competitor.

There was a time when Jaguar was more mainstream, then again so was smoking a pipe.

Brilliant visual aid mate.

 

Trickle down of tech always happens from the high end cars to the basic ones. I chose the '05 LS because it had the same engine tech (Jag 3.9l) as the new 5.0 Mustang. I think the grand crash of '08 is what killed off the development of the car. The '07 sold well as did some '08's but then it's a desert out there for these cars.

Jaguar did find itself in the mainstream with the X type and S type bringing in a younger crowd. Remember, the XK was built using a ton of the other car's parts to keep volume up and cost down.

 

[QUOTE=Queen and Country;1718824I have been told I am strong as an ox and twice as smart.[/QUOTE]

By whom? Marylin Monroe?

 

Easy on the purple prose there... Have you thought of working in advertising as a copywriter, or are you quoting somebody employed by Jaguar?

The XK's sole real USP is its looks. Apart from the supercharged cars, the performance is quite pedestrian in its price range (the 4.2 is much the same as was my 1994 Mercedes 500 SL). The convertible has far too little luggage space to be anything but an occasional-use cruiser, really, unless you travel alone. They don't seem to be terribly reliable (though then again, in the modern electronic era, what is?) It's nice to drive, but so are many cars nowadays.

But the looks... Bite-the-back-of-your-hand-and-faint gorgeous! That's what sold it to me, especially since mine is dark metallic blue. It just looks so classy and RIGHT.

It's a throwback; a gentleman's carriage in an era of tasteless, shouty, uncouth, blinged-up, in-your-face performance cars (mostly driven by tasteless, shouty, uncouth, blinged-up, in-your-face people.)

 

You might be looking at the XK through the same spectacles you view the French.
The XK was designed primarily to be a supercharged barnstormer. They offer the non-sc for the more gentile buyers.
In its designated role as a Grand Tourer, I havent found another car at any price that can match its performance on motorways. 50-70 in 1.9 seconds, do you know what a Bentley continental GT does it in- 3.1, the Audi R8 in 2.9

And none of them have the gas mileage of an XKR. So the performance is not pedestrian, unless those who buy the non-performance models. But is that really Jaguar's problem? They have even made the price difference between the two a no-brainier.

 

By an ox.

 

Jaguar sales are low everywhere it seems, even the XF hasn't sold as well as the S-Type. Good job LR sales are much higher I suppose.