Jaguar introduced the XJ in 1968 and was the last Jaguar to have had the input of Sir William Lyons, the company's founder.
My late friend Dan had a 1998 Jaguar XK8 that he whimsically referred to as his "One Thousand Dollar, TWO Thousand Dollar Car". He bought the car very well, so he thought, for only $2000. Despite having more than 200,000 miles on it it appeared to be in meticulous condition; but looks are deceiving. In reality it was falling apart and broke down often and what was worse, it was very expensive to repair. So expensive that he got accustomed to paying at least $1000 in repairs every time it broke down. Hence his nick name for the car. I can only imagine what an even older Jaguar would run him in repairs given that Dan's '98 XK8 was a paragon of engineering excellence and reliability compared to the rolling wrecks that came before it.
The Ford Motor Company had control of Jaguar from 1989 through 2009. Despite having spent billions on the company to improve it, Ford never saw a profit from Jaguar and sold it at a significant loss to Tata in 2009.
It's a fairly recent development that Jaguars actually live up to their name (there isn't a cooler name for a car in the world) and their heirs ache. Credit for that and to the disappointment of many Jaguar lovers who bristle through their clenched jaws that their princely ride was saved by a bourgeois American automobile manufacturer, goes to the Ford Motor Company.
Ford replaced the storied XJ6 and XJ12 with the XJ8. The "8" in XJ8 denoting the Ford engineered "AJ8", 4.0 liter V-8 engine.
Ford bought controlling interest in Jaguar in 1989 and turned Jaguar's medieval operations into a world class manufacturing facility. Jaguar's factory in Coventry, England was so bad that Bill Hayden, the man Ford put in charge to run Jaguar after the 1989 merger, compared the plant to the Gorky Automobile plant in Russia. A factory so bad that workers routinely painted cars that had bird crap on them from the birds trapped inside the plant. Jaguars might not have been that bad but workers got the point.
Ironically, Jaguars are indigenous to central and south America and are not found, outside of zoos, anywhere in England. Europe or Asia for that matter as well. Jaguars are the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Americas.
Ford spent billions on trying to turn Jaguar around and in many ways they did. However, despite the money spent, Ford never made a dime on any Jaguar they sold while they had control of the company. In the midst of The Great Recession, Ford dumped Jaguar in 2009 to Tata, a large manufacturing conglomerate based in India.
This 2015 Jaguar XF is one big cat as well. Rare too. It's rarity, due in large part to it's high sticker price, helps to ensure it's exclusivity.
Tara has spent lavishly on new designs with debatably mixed results. If you're a fan of the old XJ's like Dan's One Thousand Dollar, Two Thousand Dollar Jag, you might be on the fence about these new XJ's. I know I am. As nice as this car is, it's just not an XJ.
If you have your heart set on a 1997-2004 Jaguar XJ8, you can find them for sale for between $5000 and $20,000. The newer, low mileage cars naturally being more expensive. The older, more affordable models, despite what Ford was able to do, can still be quite problematic.
Then again, there's nothing stopping you from buying a Jaguar like this for around $2000. Just remember, though how expensive they are to repair.
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