04.05.2024

This is a 1988 jaguar xjs v12 and it's. just hilarious i say that because this. is consistently the cheapest v12 powered. sports car you can buy even though it's. a 12cylinder car from a desirable. luxury brand. jaguar. but of course there's a reason it's so. cheap. that reason is reliability this car has. had only two owners over its 30year. lifespan and it's traveled only 52 000. miles and yet here is the massive folder. of maintenance and repair records going. back to when this car was new this is. all over just 52 000 miles the truth is. while everybody wants to own a v12 and. while everybody wants to own a classic. sports car nobody seems to want to own. this v12 classic sports car and yet. you're curious you want to know. what it's like and so today i've. borrowed this xjs v12 from a viewer here. in san diego and i'm going to give it a.

Full review first i'm going to take you on a tour of it and show you all of the interesting quirks and features of a 30 year old v12 jaguar which should be fun then i'm going to get it out on the road and drive it and then i'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the xjs v12 click the link below to visit autotrader.com oversteer but before i get started with the quirks and features here's a little overview for those of you who don't know that much about the xjs now everyone knows the jaguar etype also called the xke which was the beautiful jaguar sports car sold in the 1960s well the car that replaced the etype was this the xjs in 1975.

The xjs obviously was nowhere near as. beautiful as the incredibly gorgeous. etype but it was more modern and jaguar. kept this car going with various. revisions all the way through 1996. before it was finally canceled to make. way for the new xk8 this 1988 model is a. coupe as you can see and depending on. the model year there was also a. convertible available along with a targa. topped model called the xjsc. which was offered in earlier years more. on that in a second now back in 1988 you. had two engines to choose from there was. a 3.6 liter six cylinder or you could. step up to the 5.3 liter v12 that this. car has which made about 300 horsepower. and with that in mind on to the quirks. and features. i'm going to start with opening the hood. in the xjs v12 which is this car's first. interesting quirk now the release for.

The hood is in the driver's foot well. but it's not a traditional release where. you pull something and it pops open the. hood instead there's this lever that you. have to move from the up position to the. down position and then it puts the hood. in this spot then when the hood is like. this you kind of reach under here to. find the hood latch when you find it you. push it forward. and then the hood. can be opened it's a rather odd. procedure now once you have the hood. open there are a couple of interesting. items in here one of which is the fact. that there is absolutely no covering on. this engine at all you know if you had a. modern car and you open up the hood. there would be a big plastic cover over. everything but on this car it's all. exposed now i asked the owner about that. and he said yep when you open up the.

Hood you can see the whole nightmare. which is pretty accurate now the next. interesting thing with the hood is the. procedure for closing it interestingly. you're not supposed to slam it shut like. you are with so many other cars in order. to make sure it's closed in fact there. is a warning label at the base of the. windshield here that specifically says. in huge font do not slam shut it is a. warning label that is instructing you to. compose yourself in a in a finer manner. pursuant to your jaguar automobile now. instead the procedure for closing the. hood is rather interesting you go up. here and you grab the hood and you bring. it down to this position which is. basically where you had it before when. you unlatched it then you go into the. driver's foot well and you pull that. little lever now to the up position.

And the hood closes. and now it is fully closed no need to. slam it shut you could behave in a more. civilized fashion with your xjs now. interestingly the trunk has a similar. situation you can open it by pulling a. little latch right here under the jaguar. script in the back you open it up and. then it just opens like a fairly normal. trunk but to close it you can't slam it. and again there is a warning label in. the trunk reminding you to be civilized. do not slam press gently to close. instead to close the trunk you basically. bring it down slowly and then push on it. and that way it's fully closed if you. slam it it could damage the latch and it. won't close all the way but not so fast. with closing the trunk because there are. a few things in here that we have to. take a look at one of which is the. jaguar car cover which is inside a giant.

Jaguar car cover bag it's like a. chopping tote bag except it is. absolutely massive. another interesting item in here is the. spare tire now you can see the spare. tire it's never been mounted on this car. still in its original spare tire. covering the thing i like best is it has. a wheel so these cars were all shipped. with five wheels but if you look closely. you can see the wheels on the outside. are chromed the spare isn't. so jaguar was like we'll give them a. wheel but we're not gonna chrome it for. them that is where we draw the line now. two other interesting things in here one. is. the original brochure which doesn't say. xjs or even have a picture of an xjs on. it it merely says v12 because that's all. you needed to know i love this brochure. because it gets into all these pictures. of the xjs next to rich people doing.

Rich people things there's one next to a. harbor there's one next to some gliders. and some woman in a sweater leaning on. it and then it gets into the xjsc. now the xjsc was a targa roof version of. this car that supposedly jaguar built. under the theory that full convertibles. may someday be outlawed by the us. government due to rollover risk. ultimately that never happened but they. still decided to build this targa top. version and as you can see it's pretty. crazy there were six different. configurations you could do with the. roof you could take off the front panels. individually like a ttop you could take. off all the panels or you could only. take off the rear if you wanted and you. could even just remove the rear window. the whole thing was kind of cool it. allowed an open air experience without. being a full convertible and it still.

Had all the top structure in place in. case it rolled over this car was not. particularly popular and it is very rare. to see an xjsc today but it did exist in. addition to the traditional coupe and. the convertible now the other. interesting thing in the trunk of this. car. like i showed you before is the service. records it is unbelievable just how many. there are dozens and dozens and dozens. going back to the original owner of this. car in 1988. and you can see some of the early. service records are just crazy here's a. 90 oil change from december 6 1988 here. is some new carpets from july 8 1988 for. 111. if you buy an xjs this is the kind of. person you want to buy it from you want. to make sure a lot has been done to it. now next up i want to move on to some. other exterior quirks of this car the. biggest of which is probably this piece.

Here now this was one of the most. characteristic lines of this car and. this whole area is rather interesting. you had this unusual curved back window. and then you had this sort of flying. pillar in the back that went all the way. to the rear of the car and then this. piece was curved too it was a very. unusual look back then and it was very. distinctive of this car the other. interesting thing back here is that they. placed the fuel door on this pillar on. the driver's side now in order to access. the fuel door this car like a lot of. cars from this area had a separate key. for the doors and for the ignition you. use the door key. you stick it in and then you can open up. the fuel door and then you can put fuel. in your xjs the other exterior item that. i think is very much worth pointing out. in this car. the v12 badge this may not have been a.

Supercar it may not have been the. world's most powerful v12 but it was a. v12 and jaguar didn't want anybody to. forget it so it has this giant v12 badge. and like two inch letters at the rear of. the car letting everybody behind you. know that you didn't skimp out and get. the six cylinder this is a 12cylinder. jag now next up we move on to the. interior of the xjs where this car has. as you can imagine quite a few unusual. quirks and features i'm going to start. with the parking brake which was mounted. to the left of the driver's seat between. the driver's seat and the door and its. operation is rather unusual to put the. parking brake on you pull it up like a. normal parking brake but then you can. put it down to make it easier to get in. and out of the car. but then how do you take it off because. it's down well the answer is you pull it.

Up and then push the little button and. then push it down and then it's off if. this was all too complicated for you. jaguar had your back they put a little. decal on this window on the side of the. car to let you know how to operate the. handbrake i like the fact that number. one it says engage in normal manner they. knew this wasn't normal but there was a. normal component to it and next up the. other interesting thing you notice when. you climb in this car is the seat belts. which are very weird by modern standards. back in the 1980s in the early 1990s the. us government gave automakers two. options you could install airbags or you. could install threepoint seat belts and. most automakers because they were. cheaper chose these threepoint seat. belts that operate in a strange manner. the lap belt component is normal you get.

In you put on the lap belt and you're. good but the belt that went across your. body is on a motorized track when you. get inside the car and it's running as. it is here the belt moves automatically. down the track as soon as you close your. door to provide the other component of. the threepoint seat belt and when you. got out the belt moved the opposite. direction to allow you to easily climb. out of the car it's ridiculous by modern. standards but this was the norm for a. period in the late 1980s and early 1990s. before airbags were required in the. united states next up the seats which. are rather interesting in this car now. this car has manual seats which isn't. really that surprising power seats were. not that common 30 years ago but it does. have power lumbar strangely enough. there's a little switch here in the.

Center tunnel you press it and then the. lumbar can wear automatically to your. liking it also has a heated seat for. both the driver and the passenger which. is also pretty impressive for this era. but despite those two things manual. seats otherwise next up we move on to. the visor mirrors and specifically the. fact that when you lower the sun visor. well. there is no mirror so how are you. supposed to look at yourself when you're. driving along in your xjs ah they have a. different solution open the glove box. and on the inside of the glovebox lid. there's something that says mirror it's. a little switch you flip it and then a. mirror opens inside the glovebox lid it. is a ridiculous overcomplication just. stick a mirror in the visor jaguar but. they didn't want to do that instead this. was their solution it's kind of.

Interesting next up we move on to the. center control stack and specifically. the climate controls which are kind of. interesting on the left you have the. temperature control and you can see it. gives you various options 65 70 75 80. and 85 you can twist it to whichever. temperature you like especially like. over on the right it gives you three. options for fan speed you have high low. and normal. so jaguar is like shaming you if you. want it low or high oh that isn't normal. now next up we absolutely have to move. on to the gear lever which is kind of. funny now the first funny thing about it. is this car had a threespeed automatic. even a 88 that was getting kind of old. but it had a threespeed automatic and. you can see the gear lever is really. funny it's just a key it sort of sticks. up from a post in the middle and then.

There's like a t part on top of it and. you can use that to shift into gear now. interestingly this transmission was. designed for you to hold second gear. yourself if you wanted to for maximum. performance if you put it in d no matter. how hard you floored the throttle it. would shift at like 4000 rpm for comfort. but you could shift it into second and. then you could hold second gear all the. way to like 6200 rpm and then you could. shift into d which was third and. continue along that's what you did if. you wanted maximum acceleration now. interestingly that gear lever sticks up. in the middle of the center console and. it is flanked of course by two ash trays. because this was a european car from the. 80s and there obviously must be one. ashtray for the driver and one ashtray. for the passenger now next we move on to.

What might be my very favorite thing in. the interior of this car and that would. be the center display this car obviously. has no infotainment screen but it has. the 1988 equivalent which is this little. plastic piece with a screen in the. middle that allowed you to see various. different items by pressing these green. buttons along the bottom on the left you. had fuel and you could choose between. instant which gave your instant fuel. economy or average which gave your. average fuel economy next there was. distance that was how many miles you've. already traveled on this trip since the. last reset then there was your average. speed then you could press time and that. would give you the current time and as. you press each of these things you'll. notice that the lights light up in green. to sort of show what is being displayed.

At the current moment and then the. button over on the very right allows you. to reset the whole thing and start all. the calculations over i think this is. absolutely awesome this is a precursor. to the complicated infotainment systems. that we have today it is the best jaguar. could do at the time i also like the. fact that in the upper left of this. there's a little switch that allows you. to toggle between miles and kilometers. in case you wanted to go metric now next. up we move on to the gauge cluster where. there are a couple of interesting items. one is the fact that instead of dials. for a couple of the vehicle information. displays you have these sort of. rolly things that are kind of angled. towards the driver you have this for. engine temperature you have it for oil. fuel and battery voltage it's just an.

Odd way to display this i think it's. rather interesting another kind of odd. thing right above that is all the. warning lights instead of integrating. them into the gauge cluster like a lot. of modern cars do cars from this era. often had individual spots for warning. lights as this car does and you can see. they're all up there none of them are. lit up in this car which is an. impressive feat for a jaguar of this era. maybe some of them are just burnt out. another interesting item in this. vicinity was the steering wheel which. frankly is unusually large for a car. from this era it was developed in the. 70s when large steering wheels were. common but by the 80s most people had. ditched that but not jaguar this car has. a large thin rimmed wheel the middle is. sort of this horizontal piece and in the. center of it there's an angry looking.

Jaguar you can press basically anywhere. in the middle of the steering wheel to. get the horn and when you do that well. here's how it sounds. now next up we move back to the glove. box where there are a few interesting. items you open it up and you discover. quite a few unusual accessories you. start off with this box which includes. an extra. seat belt latch they gave that to people. when they bought the car that's in a. little jaguar box and it says emergency. passive fixings i guess if you have an. emergency and you need a seat belt. because you can't simply drive without. one if one breaks you can use this this. car also includes from the factory. white touchup paint in a little jaguar. touchup paint container. that is really cool but nothing is as. cool as this thing this is this very. beautiful booklet cover thing with the.

Jaguar logo printed on it you open it up. and you discover that it is. a tape deck cleaner because if the tape. deck ever got gunked up you would stick. this in there and it could clean it so. you could listen to your cassette tapes. the owner tells me this has never been. removed from this package no surprise it. is amazing to see it and even more. amazing to see the classy way in which. jaguar gave it to their owners finally. we move on to the owner's manual where. there are a couple of interesting items. worth noting one is this unusual. supplement that is stuck between pages. 58 and 59 the pages that talk about the. trip computer and it says notice the. trip computer after the trip computer. has been reset to zero as described the. highest trip setting will be 999.9. when the distance travels exceeds 999. miles the tenth indicator will keep.

Functioning but the unit will not roll. over to zero zero one so when it hits. 999 it's done and it says the trip. computer will have to be reset to. continue reading this is a normal. condition and does not indicate a. malfunction of the trip computer well. okay so basically what they're saying is. it won't switch from 9.99 back to zero. unless you reset it and this is a normal. condition and it's not malfunctioning. true it is not malfunctioning jaguar. that might be true it's just bad design. they couldn't figure out how to get it. to go from 9.99 to zero without you. manually resetting it and so many people. must have complained that they had to. put a supplement in the owner's manual. which is both hilarious and so. characteristic of this vehicle one other. interesting item i love the fact that in. between all of the different sections in.

The owner's manual you flip over the. section page and there's a picture of. some beautiful classic jaguar each. section has its own classic jaguar and. it's really a cool thing when you're. frustrated and angry and going through. your owner's manual to see oh there's a. dtype you know what this is a pretty. cool car now next up we move on to the. rear seats yes this car has rear seats. it wasn't technically a true sports car. more of a grand touring car hence the. threespeed automatic and the big smooth. v12 but that meant you could take people. around in the back for grand tours. throughout europe the only problem was. getting in the back to do it you move. the front seat forward as i have already. done then you pulled on this little. latch and you pulled the backrest. forward and then you climbed in. back. which i will now do now believe it or.

Not that actually wasn't really all that. difficult but once you're back here. there really isn't all that much room. and as you can see i slide into the. seats they were very deep bucket seats. now when the driver tried to get back in. the car you put the driver seat back and. you can see that my knees are already up. against the seat even though it's in its. furthest forward position which doesn't. bode well for adults sitting in the back. seat then again when you're in the back. seat it becomes clear they never. intended for a lot of people to be. riding back here because there are. really no frills the windows don't roll. down there's really only three items of. note back here there are seat belts. there are speakers and then of course. there is an ash tray so rear seat. passengers can smoke and so those are.

The quirks and features of the xjs v12. now it's time to get it out on the road. and drive it all right driving the xjs. seatbelt first thing you notice when you. climb in and start driving the car is. tremendously quiet. shockingly so in fact even starting it. up you barely even hear it the driving. position is actually unusual i find that. there's not quite enough room in the. pedal box for my feet pressing the. accelerator my the side of my shoe. almost touches the brake as well. it's surprising that there was sort of. not a huge amount of space there. considering. you know this is not like a tiny little. lotus or something like that this is a. cool looking car it was no etype but. then again. i would argue that probably no car in. the entire history of cars ever was. um but it's still a very distinctive car. all right i'm gonna put it down to.

Second now to get the full load out of. the motor. flooring it. well you know. it uh. v12s are different today let's just put. it that way. it isn't incredibly slow but for a v12. it is incredibly slow and this is. probably the nicest one of these that. exists. and so feeling it accelerate like that. is just hilarious i mean it's fine but. it's not fast sitting at a stop light. with the windows up everything it's very. quiet in here i'm in sort of an. industrial area. where the owner works there's big heavy. trucks going around semi trucks um you. can kind of see. you barely hear any of that that's. pretty common for modern luxury cars it. is unusual for a luxury car from this. era i have enough room aside from the. pedal thing i have more than enough room. in here for myself i got headroom i got. leg room knee room but getting inside is.

Actually a challenge in this car because. the steering wheel is so massive that. getting my legs under it my right leg to. sit here was a weird it was difficult. now i will say even though this car. isn't what i would consider to be fast. it's nice and smooth the v12 feels very. nice and smooth now with that said the. handling experience is not dramatically. amazing there's actually more precision. and less vagueness in the steering wheel. than i expected um it's it's reasonably. quick steering rack you turn it and it. actually starts to to move the car very. quickly there's not much play in the. center what does happen though is. there's body roll you just get going a. little bit. the car wobbles it's not that it's not. stable it's just that the suspension was. never designed for like hard cornering. and fast turning so even though the.

Steering is pretty quick. i wouldn't necessarily call this car. much of a handler it's not really a. corner carver there's wood everywhere. everything looks nice or at least it. would have back then. um and it goes over bumps very well the. car doesn't it doesn't get unsettled it. doesn't feel. rough or harsh and so that's the 1988. jaguar xjs. v12 the cheapest v12 sports car in the. world maybe the most famously unreliable. car in the long history of famously. unreliable jaguar truthfully i have. always wanted to check one of these out. and i'm thrilled that i got to spend a. few hours today shooting a video with. this one without it breaking down. anyway now it's time to give this car a. doug score starting with the weekend. categories and styling the xjs v12 is. nice looking not incredibly beautiful. but starting to age gracefully and it.

Gets a 6 out of 10. acceleration is slow to 060 in 7.4 seconds and it gets a 1 out of 10. handling is fine steering is relatively precise but body roll is more significant around corners than a focused sports car and it gets a 4 out of 10. fun factor is only ok it's fun in the sense that it's a cool vintage jag and it's a v12 but the car isn't especially fun or thrilling to toss around or floor it since it's great at neither and it gets a 4 out of 10. cool factor is higher these are special cars and while there are far too many in rough shape to be considered ultra cool i suspect in a few years the remaining survivors will start to be seen as more special for now it gets a 5 out of 10 for a weekend score of 20 out of 50.

Next up are the daily categories. starting with features it's not. especially advanced no surprise given. its age and gets a 2 out of 10. comfort. is pretty good and it gets a 6 out of. 10. quality is low the interior is nice. and it's held up well but these are. known for poor reliability and it gets a. 3 out of 10. practicality is fine it's a. fourseater car with a decent sized. trunk and it gets a four out of ten. finally value these are insanely cheap. but also not insanely exciting or fast. or fun still it's amazing to think you. can pick up a decent xjs v12 for like. four grand it's one of the most special. cars you can buy for that money and it. gets a 6 out of 10 for a total daily. score of 21 out of 50. added up and the. doug score is 41 out of 100 and here's. how it compares to some other luxury. cars and sports cars from its era the.

xjs v12 isn't as good which is reflected. in the market value but it's still a. very interesting car and very very. worthy of a doug revue. you