So, since the chassis is almost ready (two weeks until arrival day!) I thought it was about time I got a shift on and found a donor car.. so off to eBay I went!

There I found a very nice looking 1994 XJ40 (the last of the line, in fact) with the 6.0HE V12 engine in surprisingly good condition. The only slight down-side was that the car lived in deepest darkest Wales; Rhydlewis to be exact, some 200 miles from me right out on the west coast of Wales. Minor problem.. still, it was worth a punt, I thought, for the rare 2.88:1 XJ40 diff ratio.

A week later I found myself the winning bidder with a bid of £621, so now a little road trip was in order.

A good friend of mine came down in his diesel Omega and picked me up about 9.30am on Saturday morning and off we set. We finally found the place (after a slight satnav induced detour) at about 3.30pm after a sedate cruise there. £740 later (including 6 months tax) I was the proud owner of a new car!

She drove the 200 miles home without any major issues aside from eating about £80s worth of petrol and, I’m told, the brake lights ceasing to function about 5 minutes after we’d set off (and resuming functioning about 5 minutes before we arrived home!) – oh, and it only starts if you waggle the gear lever in Park .. we’ll just consider that an anti-theft function, shall we? Mechanically, though, she runs beautifully; albeit with handling commensurate with her age and the odd electrical gremlin befitting of an old British car. Oh yes, and the passenger side mirror points largely at the ground..

 

Now the only small sticking point is.. reading up some more, the XJ40 XJ12 was actually called the ‘XJ81’ – I’m hoping it shares all the same mechanical components with the XJ40 besides the engine & gearbox, otherwise this will have been an expensive folly. When I spoke to Dax on that point they were .. vague! Perhaps someone out there knows better than I (or them)?

 

Anyway, here she is – pictures stolen shamelessly from the eBay auction because it’s pouring with rain today. But you get the idea (though the owner kept the gopping aftermarket wheels and put the original Jag wheels back on, thankfully!)