Comments on: In Defense of Last XJ’s Staidness

By: Johnny Canada

Johnny Canada — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:39:50 +0000

“Part of that image quandary is Jag’s choice of color palette – lots of pale blues, golden beiges, and there was even a maroon. You know, nothing that stirs the soul”.

Gunnar, that exactly nails it for me.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:39:44 +0000

“But may be, Jim, we’re really getting down to is in fact the route of your own predilections. What you’re really, secretly, truly interested in is to own the last gen. Park Ave.”

LOL, The wife likes those, she thinks they look classy. The problem with Buick’s is that they may look OK in the drive, but in every other way the disappoint. Everything is soft and loose, the seats get uncomfortable after a hundred miles, the handling vague and the acceleration sedate. They’re Jags on Thorazine

On the motorcycle last weekend, I passed a late 70’s Fleetwood for sale near Laconia. I needed to be somewhere and couldn’t stop, but it look clean and the asking price was $3500 (I think). I’d rather an old boat like that, than any late model domestic luxury car. Put some new shocks and springs, replace all the suspension bushings. A comparison test Roller v Caddy.

Just call me Angel, Rockford.

By: G

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:19:16 +0000

I’m glad you said that there’s Buick in the Quattroporte. I’ve seen it for years. And good point about the funky, not-quite fully automatic early transmissions. I imagine they’re sportier on the boil, though.

BTW, there’s also Mazda in those Maser lines, too.

But may be, Jim, we’re really getting down to is in fact the route of your own predilections. What you’re really, secretly, truly interested in is to own the last gen. Park Ave.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:41:58 +0000

Good point on the Quattroporte, that truly is a beautiful sedan, but avoid the early ones with the funky transmission. The funny thing is there is some Buickness in the Quat, as if the Maserati were a Buick show car before GM dumbed the styling down for production.

G, funny you should mention the color palette available on Jags, a few weeks ago I fiddled with Jags ‘build your own’ applet and noticed that British racing green was not among the choices. Sacrilege!

The Ci? I bid on it, what I felt was fair and somebody else wanted it more.

By: Gunnar

Gunnar — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:19:05 +0000

From certain angles, you have a point about the Buick aspect, Jim.

Part of that image quandary is Jag’s choice of color palette – lots of pale blues, golden beiges, and there was even a maroon. You know, nothing that stirs the soul.

I’ve driven the X350 gen. Vanden Plas. The V8 was hands down the best aspect of the car. Exhilarating note and it hauled!

On engine basis alone the Jag makes for a more compelling choice than either the E65 7er or the W220 S-Class.

That said, a used Maserati Quattroporte would be far more desirable now, me thinks, and far more memorable tomorrow.

BTW, what happened to the 850Ci?

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:02:23 +0000

It was too bad for Jaguar that they finally build a car whose reliability is inline with its price and they are done in by styling. With the irony being that Jag stayed with the classic look based on market research, while trying to fix the X308 and predecessors packaging problems. Unfortunately to my eye the x350 ended up looking too much like a top-of-the-line Buick, while at the same time automotive fashion moved away from classical queues.

This said, a gently used and well tended X350 is on my shortlist of next cars, while a Bimmer would provide preferred driving dynamics, you need to sneak up on them, less you’re struck blind by the sheer ugliness of the design. MB would be a nice balance, but the E&S model years that are with in my budget suffer from dubious quality and reliability. A problem also shared by BMW to a smaller extent. We should also mention Lexus and Infinity, but we need not consider them beyond the fact they do provide the quality expected in a luxury car but lack in panache. So that leaves the Jaguar XJ…

I’m looking forward to seeing the new XJ in metal.

By: Gunnar

Gunnar — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:54:07 +0000

Commendably, I think VW and BMW got it right with maintaining Bentley and RR’s unique British character – even if the two UK icons must share German sourced resources with their parent companies.

But hey, the House of Windsor itself is part of Germanic line.

By: Distiller

Distiller — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:48:38 +0000

Mhm. Wonder if the new strange XJ will really be more successful than the one above. I think the problem with Jaguar was not too much “britishness”, but not enough of it. Paired with decent German build quality, that is …