Inner Beauty

I bought a Jaguar.  Yes, the correct response is 'My condolences'.  It is a piece of technology so I will write about it.

Technology

This particular vehicle is a '99 Jaguar XJR.  Specs are as follows:

• 4.0L supercharged v8, 370bhp.
• Sport suspension.
• Five seats.
• 4,000 pound dry weight.
• Anywhere from 4.9 to 5.3 seconds to sixty miles per hour depending on who's testing.
• Top speed governed at 155 MPH.

Why inner beauty?

It has peeling clear coat, faded paint, dents and dings, and a worn interior.  That means it doesn't have outer beauty.  What it has is a soul.

Ordinary cars are about getting from here to there in the most practical and economical way.  There are acres of front wheel drive cars that have the same or better room, much better economy and are less likely to melt down an expensive piece of aluminum.  So why do people keep buying impractical Jaguars?

When you look at the bones of the thing, what it could be with some body work and some paint, it is low, sleek, seductive and full of presence.  Like any exotic, it looks ready to go fast sitting in the parking lot.

When you get in and fire it up and hear that cat roar, it furthers the feeling of barely contained agility, ready to launch.  If you've never driven a Jaguar, you may not know what this means.  When you press the accelerator, the XJR jumps off the line like a big, playful cat, and effortlessly attains illegal speeds.

Then there's the cornering.  It doesn't squeal.  It has little or no oversteer and understeer.  Just turn the wheel and it goes.  Your passengers will be upset, as they bounce off the sides of the car in turns, get interesting bruises from seatbelts when you hit the brakes, but you won't care and nothing will wipe the grin off your face for hours after.

That's inner beauty.  The car has so much character.  It has so much confidence.  It keeps telling you that you aren't anywhere near its limits.  Go ahead and go faster, it says, the car will sort out how to make that corner at that impossible rate.  Go ahead and go faster on the freeway, it says, you still have passing power at 90 or 100 MPH.  You can still stop if you need to.

OK, how is it on the freeway?

On the freeway, in heavy traffic, it provides the driver with opportunities that would otherwise not be there.  For a mid-sized car (large cars are extinct and I refuse to call these things large cars) it has massive mirrors giving good visibility.  You can see the space in traffic and be in it before you have time to think about it.  You can match speed in any traffic.  You don't have to worry about many cars stopping faster than you can.  Through all of that, the car seldom leans or dives and never seems to lose traction.  Throw it around like a little car, it says, but enjoy the ride of a bigger car.

Freeway bumps don't bother it.  You get the feeling of the road without the jackhammer to the kidneys that many 'sport' suspensions provide, like the imaginary suspension on the Scion xB, for instance.

Braking hard into a corner does not fluster it like it did with my old V6 Camaro, which was positively scary in heavy braking.  Flooring the throttle out of a corner does not induce mind-numbing fear like it does in other rear-drive cars with this much power, either.  I haven't really tried, but I have yet to break this thing loose in any way.

Edit:

I have found it completely possible to get the rear end to hang out in a corner, and have found it completely controllable when it finally does.  It will spin its tires on dry pavement, normally when going from first to second gear in sport mode, as I know better than to break it loose from a standstill.

So, why should we always apologize when we hear a friend bought a Jaguar?

Ok.  It is aluminum.  It is sort of glued, welded and screwed together.  This makes it feel like someone carved it out of aluminum and keeps weight down, but getting body work done on one is rather expensive.  Paint has to be specially formulated, body parts are rare, you can't weld panels to fix them and panels are nearly impossible to remove without Jaguar tooling.  So, this one is likely to remain beautiful on the inside and ugly on the outside.

Edit:

This is actually a steel Jaguar.  The aluminum ones came later.  This means that the bodywork is not particularly expensive and might get done.

That engine.  It purrs.  It roars.  It smoothly applies power until you ask for more, then it snorts, digs in the rear wheels and launches.  But, it is an aluminum overhead cam V8 with a supercharger.  For comparison, my Ford Expedition EL has a 5.4L V8 that simply doesn't require maintenance other than oil changes.  The Ford engine will be running long after the Jag packs it in, but it will never produce the kinds of smiles the Jag does.

It will also never need a new supercharger ($1200 for the part alone), never need a thousand dollar head gasket job, a thousand dollar timing chain job and so on.  Right now, the big cat is showing definite signs of needing a new supercharger at some point, so that is probably the second thing, right after I fix the brakes.

Edit:

I fixed the brakes.  That was actually cheaper than expected because I have Jag brakes, not Brembo, and they used a rather standard brake set.  The supercharger issue appears to be the snout bearings which might be a relatively cheap fix.  It, at the moment, needs a valve-cover gasket job to stop an oil leak.  It has also had two cooling lines replaced due to disintegration of the stupid plastic elbows, although, to be fair, the Expedition has gone through two plastic tees in the cooling system already.

So, is it worth it?

Do you like to drive?  No, really, really drive?  Do you have kids?  Are you a bigger person?  Then the Jaguar XJR might be for you.  It is actually not designed to be a full-on sports car and has a lot of design elements designed to make it mostly a comfortable machine, but then you can mash the throttle and summon a true exotic.  If that mix seems right for you, and you either are good with your hands or know a mechanic, then it might be a good idea.

If you are hot blooded, passionate and impulsive, then go buy the most expensive one you can afford.  Unlike a lot of other cars with similar ability, this one won't try to hurt you physically.