Jaguar XJC 4.2 MOD

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The Series Two version of Jaguar's brilliant XJ6 saloon was launched at the 1973 Frankfurt Motor Show alongside a new variant on the XJ theme, a two-door coupe.

A pet project of Sir William Lyons (and the last one he worked on before he retired from active design in 1972), the XJC used the short-wheelbase floorpan with longer front doors and a slightly different roofline, but was otherwise substantially the same as the four-door saloons.

Lyons had insisted that the front and rear windows met in a pillarless construction, which was very elegant and looked fabulous when all the windows were down, but posed a serious headache to the development engineers who had to suppress the wind noise on these fast cars. This delayed production until 1975 and the coupes were considerably more expensive and exclusive than the saloons.

All featured a vinyl roof, which was very fashionable at the time and helped to disguise the thickness of the C pillars. Just 6,505 coupes were made before production ceased in 1977, including a few badged as Daimlers and good examples are much sought after today.

This 1976 4.2 Coupé has had only one lady owner since 1977 and has only covered 37,428 miles from new. The car has been in storage for some time and records show that the mileage was only 37,383 in 1995 (that’s 25 miles in the last 23 years). The lady owner (and her husband) had a car hire business and only used the Coupé for high days and holidays, hence the low mileage.

LRR 889P is unusual in that it is has a manual gearbox, which turns it into more of a driver’s car and makes it much more entertaining to drive. LRR 889P is tax- and MOT-exempt, runs and drives, although we are advised that a little bit of TLC would not go amiss, the car having done so little work over recent years. This is a rare example indeed of a refined and very desirable Jaguar – one for the serious collector?

AMENDMENT; Bidders should be aware that this car has been family owned since 1977. Ownership passed to the daughter which has put another owner on the V5 which now shows 2 former keepers.