www.jec.org.uk

My car will be attending Helmingham Hall car show in Suffolk on 5th August and as part of this will be taking part in a driveway run.

A commentator will be reading some spiel for each car involved and I need to jot down 3 pithy interesting facts about the car. I had thought the xjs was the longest produced car for some reason and then thought about the XJ, so not sure why that popped into my mind.

Does anyone have any suggestions for any interesting facts over and above performance figures etc?

Thanks as always.

Hi Richard,
One interesting fact is that Princess Diana owned one, and that car was unique in the way that it was the only one to have a rear seat fitted in the factory, others were done by dealers.
Alan

Hi Richard,
One interesting fact is that Princess Diana owned one, and that car was unique in the way that it was the only one to have a rear seat fitted in the factory, others were done by dealers.
Alan

Just to add to this, as it was a Cabriolet it had a hard top fitted above the rear seats for safety. Apparently she owned it for 4yrs from 1987 > 1991. At this point the rear seats were deemed to be too small for her children. The car was recently on show at a London classic car show.

One door mirror is fitted further back then the other. (On purpose, not as a result of British Leyland workmanship)

Although the frontal area is greater then the E-type, it's aerodynamic factor is better.

The gearstick indicators are on the left of the gear lever, as more were expected to be sold to L/H drive countries.

It was initially advertised in the USA as the S-Type.

Thanks very much. I have a couple of weeks yet until the she, so if you think of anything else please shout.

Richard

The rear butresses (not flying butresses - as often mistakenly referenced) are functional and help provide stability at high-speed. They are not cosmetic or part of any former plan for a mid-engined coupe (another myth).

Thanks Rich.

One car show commentator I heard said Jaguar made the V12 by sticking two 2.6 engines together. In fact the reverse was true, the 2.9 AJ6 engine uses one of the V12's cylinder heads. The "HE" engines, with "Fireball" cylinder head designed by Michael May (a Swiss racing driver and engineer, worth Googling) provide a "lean burn" and very high compression ration, fuel economy features way ahead of their time. (Follow up the second reference in the Wikipedia link above for more details.)

For a detailed history of the V12 it's worth reading all 12 pages of Roger Bywaters webpage.

http://www.jagweb.com/aj6eng/v12-engine/index.php

There is also plenty more on his main site pages about the straight 6 and the V8.

I still love this video;
https://youtu.be/pPxpPYLW4kw

Ah, slide rules and pencils and not a calculator in sight.
Luckily Walter wasn't born in modern times with initials like that.

...
Luckily Walter wasn't born in modern times with initials like that.

Wasn't just me who thought that briefly then

Absolutely nothing to do with XJS or even cars, but an interesting thing all the same:

If you have a TV remote control that seems faulty, look at the LED to see if there are light pulses when pressing the buttons.

But it's infra-red you say and you can't see it!

Operate it into the lens of a digital camera and look at the screen, it will show if it is working. (Might not work on an iPhone, but should on a Nokia phone camera or normal digital camera. Go on, try it!

Obviously if it doesn't show then either the batteries or connections are faulty or it's toast. Either way it's still interesting, well slightly.