Jaguar Summer Festival

Parade marking the saloon’s half century the highlight of the 900-car gathering

The Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club’s weekend of celebrations to mark the XJ’s 50th anniversary culminated in this spectacular oneday rally, bringing together more than 900 of the marque’s classics.

The weekend gathered a huge range of all models from the four XJ ‘families’, up to and including current cars. The centrepiece was a timeline display showing examples of each significant XJ variant

Jaguar Land Rover Classic itself also supported the weekend, opening its stunning facility up to club members the preceding day.

The variety of ring displays was interesting (with two outings for a dog agility display group; amusingly leftfield for a car rally celebrating a marque often known as the big cat) and culminated in a very well organised parade around, which meant those not taking part could watch from where their own car was parked; a clever and subtle little piece of classic car theatre which worked very well.

The highlight of the parade was a trip around the arena accompanied by informative commentary and occasional interviews with owners handled by marque expert and prolific author, Nigel Thorley.

The XJ parade was the centre of this - but there was also a smaller parade of XKs celebrating 70 years of the nameplate, which started at the 1948 London Motor Show (and was recently commemorated at XK70).

Participants in the one-day rally included this 1977 Daimler Double Six Vanden Plas.

The day’s XJ Timeline started with the oldest surviving saloon and ran over a large portion of the rally field.

Russian classic car enthusiast Sergei Kovalev had driven his 1971 Series 1 from Moscow: a far-flung fan, indeed!

David and Jan Mattocks entered their 2001 X308 XJR in the concours. ‘I’ve had it five years and this one had been looked after from new. Unusually, it was chauffeur-driven,’ he said.

Graham Belson with his Signal Red XJC 4.2, which was built in 1977.

Jaguar Heritage also lent support to this year’s rally, with fire and police XJ40s.