Background
Most aficionados know that the Jaguar XJ6 was the last model to have benefitted from the full-throated involvement and ultimate sign off from the marque’s founder and patriarch, Sir William Lyons. Fewer probably are aware, however, of Lyons’ level of personal investment in the car. Although Lyons would live a full 17 years beyond the XJ’s launch in 1968, he fully retired in 1972. He would later say of the flagship saloon “Without any doubt at all, the XJ6 is my personal favourite. It comes closer than any other to what I always had in mind as my ideal car.” Praise indeed.
Perhaps no wonder then that the XJ lineage continued in an ostensibly recognisable form until the arrival of the X351 in 2010. Some 35 years and 800,000 XJ saloons after the XJ’s initial launch, the X350 model arrived to become the third family of XJ saloons. The X350 bought the Jaguar flagship bang up to date with a host of innovations and state-of-the-art construction methods. The aerospace-based aluminium bodyshell, for example, was a pioneering construction method for cars at the time. Exotic and space age materials such as magnesium, military-grade epoxy adhesives and boron steel for rivets were also used.
In 2003 a range topping Super V8 was launched to sit atop the prestigious range. A range wide facelift was implemented in 2005, coded as the X356. The X356 saw the Super V8 morph into the Daimler Super Eight in all markets except North America. The Daimler version also gained the long wheelbase chassis as a default (with the original, or short, wheelbase available still as an option) adding a full five inches behind the B pillar. Powered by a supercharged version of the 4.2-litre AJ8 V8 engine in ultimate AJ34S, 395bhp form, the Super Eight was virtually unrivalled for its combination of supreme luxury and thrilling performance and dynamics. Sir William was long gone, of course, but he would have been thrilled.
