Amusing or abomination?

[Zumbruk]

Harold & Maude 'E' type hearse recreation;

[reddiesel]

It looks to me that they havent interfered much with the actual E Type Bodywork , its like a pram hood stuck on the back of a convertible but yes a mess . Didn't Lynx do something similar with an XJS ?

[a8hex]

Except that a Lynx Eventer is rather lovely.
There's been a long running thread here on them

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[reddiesel]

To my shame I have never owned nor ridden in an XJS , aesthetically I find them a bit challenging . The trouble is we were all awaiting an E Type replacement in the Seventies and up rolled the XJS which wasnt really an E Type replacement at all .

[a8hex]

reddiesel said:

To my shame I have never owned nor ridden in an XJS , aesthetically I find them a bit challenging . The trouble is we were all awaiting an E Type replacement in the Seventies and up rolled the XJS which wasnt really an E Type replacement at all .

I've never owned one although I've considered it a few times. When I looking to buy an X300 LadyB8 fell in lust with a convertible XJS they had in at Meads in Burnham (Slough ) despite having spent years dreaming up reasons why I wasn't going to be allowed an open top sports car. Since the XJS was still a current model we test drove the demonstrator first and we both loved it. The V12 we had been looking at must have been sitting in the showroom for a few weeks without moving and when I drove it the steering felt like the wheels were out of balance. What I didn't know then and the salesman also didn't know is that within a mile or so the feeling would go away. XK8 convertibles are the same if they've been standing a while. I'd have loved to buy the demonstrator but it was slightly over the nominal budget we'd set ourselves. Oh well I've loved the X300 and still have it. I've driven a few more XJS over the years.

As you say, when it came out it was quite unlike an E-Type. But then most V12 E-Types were quite unlike an early series 1 E. The E-Type started out life as a sports car but morphed into a GT, first with the 2+2 and then the fixed head series 3. Even if you're being charitable, Enzo Ferrari's description of the E being the most beautiful car in the world, no longer applied. All manufactures feared the US (the one big market place) was going to kill off the open top car. And everyone else felt the GT was the way the market was going. The XJS was the result.
As others have commented in thread on the X351 and I wrote about here when the X350 was launched. There comes a point in the lineage of Jaguars where a signifiant change is needed. Sir William wasn't afraid of doing this.
The XK had run its course by the end of the 50s and something new was needed in the market. Result the E.
The Mk VII through IX had come to their logical end, we got the MkX (420G)
The small saloon, Mk2 & S-Type (Mk3) sort of became the 420 before both lines becoming the XJ.
By the mid 70s the E was no longer the fresh face new kid on the block.

I liked the XJS at launch even as a teenager. The lines are far sleeker than the fixed head Series III E-Type. The side window in your picture looks standard and always looked too big in the fixed head to me. I thought the flying buttress rear end was a stylish solution which I prefer to the back of the later fixed head E. A hard top on an OTS is much more to my liking.

[reddiesel]

You are totally right about the E Type Series 3 ending up a GT , did it ever really suit the V12 engine ? I remember as a young lad one of the final editions sitting in Appleyard unsold for close to a year in the early Seventies , still the same original iconic shape but looking very bloated and past its sell by date . I think nowadays however they are very good value for money as a Classic buy , American imports have brought prices down to realistic levels .

[a8hex]

I like their look in convertible form and the add on hard top looks OK. It's the fixed head I'm not so enamoured of, but it's very colour sensitive.
I was down at Winspeed a couple of years back and they were moving a convertible which they'd been breathing on. The sound it made was incredible, passed straight through the ears and into the WANT circuits of the brain. Normally they purr but this one snarled.