50 years of the Jaguar 240/340

8 BRILLIANT JAGUAR SALOONS TO BUY RIGHT NOW As a pair of stylish Sixties saloons celebrate half a century since they entered production, we look at which other classics from the Jaguar stable offer unbeatable value

Eight brilliant Jaguar saloons to buy right now

Few other carmakers have created such a strong saloon lineage – some have come close, but for that heady combination of looks, refinement and affordability, there’s only one dynasty worth considering.

With the final incarnation of Jaguar’s compact saloon being launched 50 years ago, it’s worth looking beyond the 240/340 range to earlier and later cars. From its first post-war four-door saloons right up to the final X308 XJ8, Jaguar saloons have always had a distinctive look and levels of comfort that few other car makers could match, while the later models ushered in new levels of refinement and ride quality.

Unsurprisingly, Jaguar’s saloon offerings have appealed to all walks of life down the decades, from doctors and barristers to publicans and bookies. Jaguar, it seems, appealed to the masses irrespective of the size of their bank balance. And if they couldn’t afford a new one, a shabby older example (in the days before the term ‘classic’ was coined) would suffice. Plenty of Mk2s and S-types offered a cheap way into Jaguar ownership in the 1980s and it’s the same situation today, only those cars have been replaced by bargain-basement second-generation S-Types, X300 XJs and X308 XJ8s.

In the case of the more recent models, there are still real bargains to be had, but with the later XJs and S-Types in particular currently languishing at the bottom of their value curves, now is definitely the time to buy one before all the highmileage clunkers are scrapped and values of the remaining good ones begin to rise.