JAGUAR CLASSIC WORKS
From XJ-SS to CX-75S, JLR’S Classic Works is home to hundreds of significant Jaguars (and Land Rovers), with a goal to get them all in running order. Adam Towler takes a look
THE MAN FROM CLASSIC WORKS AND I PAUSE next to a Signal Red pre-he XJ-S V12 and stare. We’re both smiling for reasons that quickly become clear, as we regale each other with tales of childhood journeys squashed into the back seats of Jaguar’s controversial coupe. In my case, a friend of my father’s had the TWR V12 version. That was cool: Alexander O’neal on the tape deck, big gold watch; it was the ’80s to the maximum, and I was in awe.
That’s usually the way with cars, isn’t it? The friend’s dad who had one, or the neighbour; memories burnt into our brains at a formative age of seemingly unattainable cars, then reignited in later life by that powerful narcotic called nostalgia. I haven’t got a bright red XJ-S near the top of my own classic car wish list, but I can’t help but be drawn towards this example.
The same drug is at work as I look down the row upon row of Jaguar and Land Rover classics, double-stacked in long lines. It reminds me of the brightly coloured wooden garage I had as a kid, where Matchbox cars could be parked in the multi-storey and you drove into the lift to reach different floors. Except, of course, these cars are real – without wheels pointing in four different directions, aren’t clogged with garden mud, and don’t have brutal damage inflicted by skirting boards at each corner. These are some of JLR’S very own crown jewels.
Next door in this 14,000m² facility at Ryton-ondunsmore is possibly the most expensive-looking workshop I’ve ever seen. It is simply vast. As many as 54 ramps are arranged in expansive work areas; surgically clean, light and airy. This is what happens when a major automotive brand gets serious about its heritage – and understands that there’s good profit to be made there, too.
On the day of our visit, the 25 ‘Works Trophy’ Land Rover Defenders are in various states of build (calm down, Richard Porter), but there are also D-type continuations, XJ220S, XJ-SS and old Range Rovers, some looking distinctly better than new. And lots and lots of old Land Rovers, which I must admit I’m quite partial to, even though prices have gone ballistic, which is annoying if you haven’t bought one already. But I’m not here to see those today, and without direct permission Aston can’t photograph the owners’ cars sitting in various states of mechanical undress. Today is about the collection of 300 cars in the hall alongside.
We’re mostly here for the Jags, it’s true. As the brand slowly starts to leave its troublesome mass-market strategy behind for an all-ev luxury future in a few years’ time, it’s especially poignant to stroll past silent rows of the cars that make it a sleeping giant, in emotive terms if not by profit and volume. There are cars here that were once relatively common and now aren’t. Cars that were once desirable, then weren’t, and now increasingly are again. And cars that all but the marque’s die-hard fans will have forgotten: XJ40S, 420Gs, Mkvs and so on. There are famous JLR cars from films, too, such as the fire-damaged C-X75 from the James Bond movie
My guide is Matt Bailey, business development manager at Classic Works. It’s a small team for a large number of cars, with Matt, a supervisor, a curator and one dedicated technician, and there’s a lot of work to be done. That’s because this is far from being a museum: there’s the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust for that, custodian of such globally significant treasures as NUB 120, the Coupe des Alpes-winning XK120 of 1950/51 (although sister car
RUB 120 is here), and TWR XJR-9 chassis 488, the 1988 Le Mans 24-hour winning Group C car. Some of the Trust’s cars can be seen here today on loan, and the two entities have established a working relationship together for the common cause. But the collection at Classic Works is different – it needs to work for its supper.
It began with Jaguar buying the 543-strong James Hull collection back in 2014. ‘The cars here are from that original purchase, along with our own cars that we’ve added,’ says Matt. ‘We’ve sold off most of the other marques [a few 1950s and ’60s Bentleys can just be made out several rows back, their dinner-plate-sized headlamps peering suavely out of the darkness, and I spot a lovely Mk3 Mini-cooper], and we now have currently around 300 cars here.
‘Some of the cars we’ve sold were Jaguars; we had 15 XJ-SS for example, and that’s not for us – that’s the role of the JDHT.’ Indeed, Bailey is not afraid to sell anything if it doesn’t meet the purposes of Classic Works. As we arrived, I’d noticed two X150 XKS in the expansive entrance lobby/ showroom – a late 5-litre XKR and a lovely 4.2 XKR-S – each showing just delivery mileage. Both will be sold to collectors to raise funds because their mileages are so low they couldn’t realistically be driven. So the collection will replace them with excellent but useable examples that can be ‘on the button’, ready to go when required.
So what exactly is the point of all this then? Classic Works is all about strengthening the Jaguar brand and embraces a whole range of activities: the continuation cars, brand experiences and Classic Racing, plus servicing and restoration. In fact, there’s almost no limit other than a customer’s imagination to what the department can do, from a modernised Series 1 E-type to what looks like an early L322 Rangie in for a service next door.
Take, for example, the beautifully restored XK120 that sits quietly in the row of cars, its badges and detailing revealing that it was prepared for the Mille Miglia last year, an event that Jaguar didn’t ultimately attend for obvious reasons. Drawn from Works’ collection of early XKS (which is extensive), it was competition-prepared with the idea that a customer would enter the event as a Jaguar ‘Works driver’, their name entered into the firm’s records alongside those of Mike Hawthorn, Stirling Moss, Martin Brundle and Andy Wallace. Race suit, full support crew, spares, you name it was to be included, with the cherry on the top being that they’d own the car at the end of it. I don’t dare to ask what all that might cost, but if you’ve got the means it does sound like a fun way to spend a lot of money… Classic Works doesn’t intend to sell off all its cars like this, one by one, but if you owned an XK120 and fancied the same experience there’s nothing to stop you from asking for the same treatment.
‘THEY’VE SOLD SOME JAGUARS – THEY HAD FIFTEEN XJ-SS FOR EXAMPLE’
Then there’s the golden-orangey-hued Project 8, a preproduction example that was destined for the crusher until Classic Works saved it. Now it’s available for those who may want to experience Jaguar’s unlikely supersaloon hero, perhaps at the local Fen End track that JLR owns, or if the parent company needs an example for display. It’s a policy that Matt is pursuing further, developing relationships across JLR’S vast engineering teams so that when a project comes to a close something useful to the collection, such as this P8, can be saved for a new life. The same is true for the continuation cars because ‘car zero’ of any tiny production run henceforth comes automatically to the collection.
My eye is also drawn to other gems, such as a pair of XKR-S GTS, one with just delivery mileage, and a beautiful early E-type with what turns out to be period Coombs mods. A bright red XJ40 is instantly recognisable, too: this was the fire tender safety car at Silverstone for many years – races I attended as a youngster, where I’d watch it tail the field around on the first lap following the start of the race. And I must admit to having a thing for the Lynx Eventer – an XJ-S V12 ‘estate’ – the example here believed to be the only one to have a manual gearbox.
The man with almost sole responsibility for tending to the mechanical needs of this huge collection is Scott Barber. He started his career as an apprentice at a large Jaguar main dealer in 2006, then worked there as a technician before answering an advertisement he saw at the Essen classic car show for this role. That was four years ago, but it’s refreshing that his enthusiasm seems undimmed, particularly given the mammoth task in front of him – that of maintaining and eventually getting all the cars you see here running again. Given the breadth in age and technology of the collection it requires a really broad knowledge base, but then Scott was working on diesel locomotives as a toddler during a youth spent around engines. He’s owned many classic cars himself, but these days is into British army lorries of the 1940s and ’50s. His favourite car in the collection is an E-type (a Series 2 with many early Series 3 development parts) once owned by Lofty England, the former Jaguar engineer and later chairman and CEO, although he’s hoping an XJ220 and XJR-15 will join in the future.
What’s not currently in the collection is almost as interesting as what is. Absentees include the two aforementioned early ’90s supercars (the XJ220S we see are customer cars), but the biggest holes are far more prosaic. There’s no X-type, for example, or S-type, and only one X100 XK model. These are cars the collection will need to acquire if it’s to cover all bases, even if in some cases they’re a less romantic page in the firm’s history. Similarly, while it has some truly special E-types (two early ‘flat floor’ cars, the only known Roman Purple S1, plus three of the commemorative Series 3 V12s that saw out the type’s production), what it could really do with is some decent but non-historic E-types for all sorts of press and customer duties, because funnily enough it’s the E-type that gets the most requests and you don’t always want to be loaning the really special stuff out for the sometimes rough-andtumble life of a ‘press car’.
Naturally, your correspondent has his eyes open as we browse around, identifying a few choice examples that may well appear as ‘Icons’ in these very pages. Funnily enough one might wear a body kit by a certain Tom Walkinshaw Racing. Could be time to dig out those old cassettes…