Central Valley Classic Cars

My fascination with Jaguar dates back to stories my father would tell me of his high school friend’s XKE. Some day I’d like to own and restore a ‘61 E-Type cabrio. Through a series of fortunate events, I have, quite unexpectedly, acquired my starter Jaguar: a green 1997 XK8 coupe.

The car does not have the stats that say “good deal, safe bet”:

• NOT a revised edition (includes the 1.0 mistakes in the engine and mechanics)
• NOT a single owner car (I’m the 4th)
• NOT been garaged (the last owner had it in a carport, don’t know before that)
• NOT low miles (108k, reasonable for 10 years of driving, but few XK8 have seen so many)

From a distance, it looks pretty darn good, but you don’t have to get super close to see that this car hasn’t had the easiest 10 years of the cars that rolled out of Coventry in May of 1997. It’s got slightly more than its fair share of nicks and scratches and a couple of small body shape imperfections. There is the possibility that that the car was in a small, unreported fender-bender; Mike and John at Hills Motor have found funny things like a dent in the AC unit, like it had been pinched, and a tag missing from a surface in the trunk. But the engine seems to be in great shape which is what I was really hoping for.

With the mechanics passing the Hills Motor inspection with flying colors, I felt this was the right XK8 for the family. It should work for my occasional, non-rush hour commutes for the near term and, long term, I hope to put some effort into cleaning up the externals and amenities.

The best praise I’ve gotten for the car came from my friend Pete, an authoritative performance car expert, who said “that’s a gentleman’s car.” I didn’t tell Pete about the car before we bought it because I was afraid he, being a Porsche nut, would discourage the purchase and steer me toward a German alternative. But he approved, mostly in knowing the back-story of my interest. When I told him how much we paid, he said “woah, that’s a lot of car for the money.” I agree.