Owning a Jaguar XJ-S

‘It reminds me of a Series 3 XJ my dad had when I was young,’ says XJ-S owner James Powell. ‘I love the ambience of these Seventies Bl-era cars – I’ve also got a 1980 Range Rover I’m in the process of restoring.

’I’m a landscape gardener and I spend most of my time driving vans, so the XJ-S is the perfect place to escape to at weekends, sporty yet relaxing. They do have their issues – this restored car was £6000 and it’s a superb example, but it’s still needed new kickdown cables, the speedometer’s temperamental and it threw its viscous fan coupling through its radiator. Pre- and post-he parts are noninterchangable so much had to be sourced via Japan, but nothing was too expensive.’