This British Racing Green 2002 Jaguar XK8 is a Little Bit Clichéd, But Still a Luxury Car Bargain

Good morning, I'm Bill from Auto House of Naples. You know, it's not a very nice Tuesday in Florida. I really have to be honest. It's embarrassing. It's muggy and unpleasant out here. I mean, it's just awful. August is probably the worst month. Being in Naples, I really want to say that July is bad enough, but August only makes it worse. I mean, the humidity in the air is palpable. You could cut it with a knife. It's horrendous. To me,

this

is the weather equivalent of a buffalo at 40 degrees below zero. You know, in winter it's just a time when you don't go out and here I am outside, which absolutely sucks, uh, birds, there are some around, I heard a woodpecker before, it gives me chills, God knows what they could do to your head if they landed on you so you know that we are attentive again in

this

place.

There is too much cover for them. Too much. I can't watch them. I don't know what they are. until it all seems a

little

scary to me not to mention the roosters, the chickens in the back, who knows if they can escape their pen, come out and peck me to death, I've seen it on youtube, they do kill people so You I have to be very careful with that stuff, a

little

update, you know, this channel, don't even think it's going away, it's

still

going strong and it's

still

putting out cars. I'll eventually figure out how to change the damn name and move the Autoeuropa channel. service where it will be owned by my own channel in the future so at some point we will do it, what I need is one of those little purple haired snowflakes to do it, I mean I'm obviously too old I just can't I want say.

If it was an Atari 2600 I could probably figure it out, but you know, this modern stuff is too much for me, I want to go back to a flip phone anyway, what else we had a little race weekend at Daytona? It didn't go well in a variety of ways, number one, it was a monument to the tropical storm, that tropical storm with a strange name was heading straight for Daytona, which led them to cancel the Sunday races and condense the Saturday races, That was a little annoying. because you know there's less

racing

and on top of that the thing is sold out so obviously we could have gone on Sunday if people had been a bit more optimistic about how the weather would go but either way it wouldn't have worked out.

For me, because the car had a stupid mechanical problem that I just couldn't overcome, a really stupid problem, it would stall, the engine would stall right in turn five, you know, and only in turn five, I mean, how the hell does that replicate? Trying to diagnose the problem later just doesn't seem possible, so I'm going to be fighting that for a while and, you know, I hope we can make it work, but overall the race weekend was a bust and I said I got Drunk, I went to Daytona, which is full of disgusting and fantastic fun, like, you know, massage parlors, strip clubs and other cool things, although most of my team sold out, they were just absolute weaklings, I really didn't were.

I had to hold on to other people. when i was there because the whole goon platoon

racing

team had other things to do, pathetic, some people are obviously racing drivers and some people aren't. You know, I was looking at Peter's statue here and I think it's time to get it wet. Again, you know, I think it's sad that she's sitting there, dry as a bone, no water cascading down, no sound of water dripping, it really couldn't take much to get the thing going again, so we're going to have I have to talk to him about it.

I think it's just unacceptable that that's not wet and that will bring us to this finally, speaking of things that get you wet, this is a

2002

jaguar

xk8 convertible, you know what the problem is with this car, it's beautiful and I love it. I don't want to because it's a

clich

é, the

green

British racing

jaguar

with its muscular feminine curves and its two seats and its ridiculous rear seats and, you know, the top that should fold under a canvas cover, ​​​​but no. it does, and you know headlights with clear covers on top I just hate being a sucker for this car and I am and I think we're bigger suckers for this car in America than even the British, we get into this thing, it's got union flags on the carpets of the floor, I don't think that's something that can happen in England.

Maybe some English viewers could correct me on that, but I just don't see that happening. It's much more of an American thing and I'm a victim of You know how when I look at this car with the British racing

green

paint, the cookie commonly hides within the sharp curves reminiscent of the E type? Oh man, does it make my heart pound? And you know, I've done a lot of these. cars that we could go back, we could go into william lyons and william wamps and the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, which became the SS Car Company before the war and obviously that name, you know, went south of England after the war, so they had to buy them. the jaguar name of an aircraft company and it became jaguar and was run by sir william lyons wolmsley had departed a long time ago and the lions were so i don't know how you would say it i mean it made enzo ferrari look separated from his company , the way he oversaw almost every facet of production, i.e. he designed cars, worked on them in his driveway, had neighborhood kids sitting on a fence watching him, was a dedicated cat, and at one point got a guy named William. or sorry, malcolm sayer, uh, who was an aerodynamicist, an airplane designer in World War II and, frankly, he was probably completely crazy, but an absolute genius, a genius, and he designed the type e, uh, speaking of enzo, a car that, uh, ferrari, uh, enzo ferrari said was the most beautiful ever produced, that's high praise from that guy and he died in the early 1970s during the production of the E-Type.

He passed away, where we probably would have gotten more cool stuff from him, but the alliance continued even when Jaguar was gone. Economically in the south, you know they went bankrupt, they were bought out by other companies, they became British mainland part of a big, ridiculous thing, which didn't help them at all, they went into receivership in the 80s, they operated under the government for a while and then. Finally, in the late 80s, the 89 Ford Motor Company bought them when the United States was rushing around buying European brands. Ford bought Volvo and Jaguar. General Motors bought Saab.

I know I got the better end of that deal as much as I love Saabs, but anyway, Ford. I bought a Jaguar and a lot of guys were absolutely terrified of what they would do. You know, they pictured that '80s Thunderbird with jaguar badges running around and there was a lot of denial and negativity. Well, thank God, that wasn't true. They went very tone deaf and brought in a guy named Jeff Lawson as a designer who really revamped the entire company in terms of his and Jaguar's design under Ford. Two that never made a dime with the Jaguar, by the way, Ford never did with the Jaguar.

No matter, they really helped it, modernized it, and got it to where it is today, and that's a car company that was essentially part of a cottage industry. It became a car company that could compete with the best in the world. and this car, you know, came to compete with Mercedes at the time and did quite well. It certainly had a lot more charm and warmth, but we'll get into that, anyway, the blank sheet of paper in many, many years and I think only the fourth blank sheet of paper on the jaguar engine. had ever built it, it had 290 horsepower, it was all aluminum, double overhead camshafts, variable valve timing, I mean, just a fantastic engine and that engine helped carry Jaguar into the early part of the decade. 2000 in a way that helped make them profitable today and I.

I think they are owned by the Indians now, maybe it's revenge for colonialism but who knows anyway let's get into it so I bought this yesterday. That's how clean it was or a new detailer, turns out it's actually not much better than the old detailer. In fact, in some ways it's worse, but I love Jimmy. I hired him myself at Auto House over 10 years ago and he's still there. He's a great guy, but damn, we're going to have to beat him up a little. I asked Dalton, the retailer, that we will do it. See, he told me that he had some money saved.

He has about two weeks left before he has to get a job, so he's taking it easy. He doesn't know if he wants to go back to work for a while and, frankly, I don't blame him. a guy with his skills should probably take it off for a while anyway, let's get into the trunk, so to do that you press this angry looking cat button, uh, between the jaguar and up, it comes, uh, here's something nice. about the competition, you know Mercedes was a folding hardtop SL, uh, at this point, uh, at O2, at least it was coming out and it didn't have the same trunk space that this Jaguar had, you could throw golf clubs very quickly and easily. the back here, box for hand grenades, guns, you know, kids, little kids, whatever you want to throw in the back was pretty easy in this car and that's one of the benefits of having this soft top. vintage style that does not fold. under a ton of coverage, so, you know, not only does it give you a sort of listen to the jaguar's roots, but it also gives you space in the trunk.

I'm not going to lift this up but underneath is a full size spare tire, it's like a Chinese finger trap once you lift it up it's very hard to put it back in place with one hand so trust me there's a nice tire spare part below. I also have my garbage bag because now I'm doing videos on location again and I have some coronavirus whiskey here now, you see the old number seven with some rum for Jimmy, hopefully that will help him get his details together, so anyway, there's all the good stuff in the trunk, you get it, you know, properly finished. but not over the top and you also get a CD changer.

You also grate this great little leather pull to get it down. Take a look under the hood. There are those Union Jacks I was talking about. I mean, it's a little ridiculous. like the reverse opening hood I think it's cool, a little attention to the E type, even if it was also half the front fenders, there's the aj v8, you see those tuned intake runners, the twin overhead cams, tech vvt. fantastic, fantastic engine, 290 horsepower is pretty good on O2 and then if you got the supercharged version and added another 100 or so that was pretty good too, but a simple, strong, torquey v8 came at a speed zf5 that changes.

You can totally see by the way these bushings are intact and nice that this car has been very well serviced for just 35,000 miles and everything is fine and in perfect condition underneath, but a great engine from Jaguar and it was quite a disaster. They built this thing. Wasn't it a rebadged Ford V8 Jaguar? He conceptualized this engine, designed it and put it into production under Ford and, uh, it really is an engine that helped save the Jaguar. He brought them something from a strange, you know, cottage industry company with bad electronics, uh, in a lot. Better, you know, a proper company with defective electronic components.

Oh I'm kidding the electronics are pretty good they are all bosch in this car and ford and no lucas at all which is part of what damaged the car in the first place I always say Mercedes. it unfairly benefits from a past reputation, in the same way that Jaguar is unfairly disadvantaged by a past reputation. These cars are so much better than the stuff Jaguar was building in the 80's and early 90's, oh that was too hard. We've got our little cover here and I'm actually going to take it off before we get in the car, that way I can put the top on before we go for a drive and show you that everything is very old.

You get these cool ones. little tabs that could have been removed from any kind a little bit of uh everything is difficult with one hand here we go this still has these little things in there that catch under the trunk most of them get lost in these cars anyway put that there and close the top close the boot any American who uses the word boot or hood should be executed I'm going to tell you right now don't do it that's a British thing just because you buy a jaguar doesn't do it I give you license to use words like that , okay, so let's turn it on.

I'm going to back up a little bit too to get out of the strange sunlight, of course there are the windshield wipers because I'm okay, let's back up. so you know, this is a joke, this is from a time when for goodness sake they wanted to hear their previous cars and their former glory, so it's all wrapped in beautiful inexpensive leather and rich burlwood, It looks absolutely fantastic, right? Honestly, I don't care, I don't care if it's good to useor something like that, it's beautiful and, you know, I think it's fantastic. You see the three big gauges in front of you, you have the tack, you have your 170. mile per hour speedo I'm not sure how optimistic that is uh you have your fuel gauge your water temperature uh this could have had the um uh gps on the dashboard you also know thank god it wasn't like that, it's a little screen that goes here, it sucks it's like having pac-man on your dashboard and it's much better to have these three fancy gauges, you get the oil pressure, ya you know, a fancy analog watch, a prerequisite, and your voltmeter, all very good stuff, you also get air conditioning, which we're going to take a bit of now because it's ridiculously humid and hot ridiculous the switch all redone by Ford uh it's not bad but you know, it's okay if I'm going to be a little picky, it's a little difficult to see and discern, you can turn off the traction control if you want to try to turn on the rear tires. you know, with the double wishbones in the front, the control arms on the back or ah, you know, I don't know, it'll probably engage really well, so I don't know how much the wheel will spin.

You get front and rear fog lights on the heated seats. Up there, of course, are all the climate controls. You have an Alpine cassette in the dash which works great because you can use it as an iPhone connector. You know, you put in a cassette. The cable comes out, connects to your iPhone, you can keep the factory stereo and continue listening to music on the phone. It's got a CD changer so it'll work and you'll see what we have on the radio today, commercials, car commercials, obviously, here you are. "I have this weird little place to put things.

I really don't know what's going on there. I mean, you're obviously not going to put a weapon of any kind in there. Your phone isn't going to fit because it's inexplicably ribbed." You've got these little slots here, I guess you could put coins in. Here is the roof button. Here is a famous Jaguar.. J Shifter. J Gate. They call it if you want to work your way through your own gears, which no one does. You have more beautiful. wood around you have the cruise control on and off, these are counterintuitive, they are on when they are up and off when you push them, I have no idea why Jaguar Ford would do that but that's how it is It's kind of sport button light that will change the shift points on the transmission, you press it, it's off, you turn it on, the red light comes on, it will downshift a little faster and hold the gear a little more alertly. the catholic church these things are still working maybe they want to send a miracle team uh this is the first shit that breaks on almost every jaguar xk8 uh that delicate little ashtray lid and this uh this set of cup holders here that again are just designed to become explosive and break, but they work on this one.

You also have a little place to put things there. I don't know if you could fit a Walther ppk in there, but maybe a glove box. You have a set of books. very nice stuff and here is the original window sticker which is nice to see. I love it when people save them and here you can see they're not kidding with this one. The exterior color is very British racing green on this car. We have cashmere caiman and coventry brunswick, obviously people were drinking coffee while buying jaguars and they weren't being very careful, but this thing is 75 grand cheaper than the sl500 at the time, but you know, it was offered. one thing you know the mercedes sl is an amazing car it uses more technology than the jaguar for sure even if it uses less wood and leather it's not as responsive and warm as this car i mean it's sterile it's humorless german

luxury

you know that kind? of has no sense of humor he's scowling at you at best he's, you know, stone-faced at best sorry, scowling at worst uh he just doesn't have the same kind of love that the jaguar has the same warmth the same feeling and uh no one is going to Put German flag formats, well maybe they will, I don't know what people do anymore, but I think it would be creepy, but you know, the rich aroma of this car's matte seats, the beautiful expanses of burl wood, it just is.

The true beauty of the Jaguar and has a warmth, charm and grace that you don't get in German cars. Here is an auto-dimming mirror. You have the link to your home. You have part of this Alpine upgraded premium sound system. everything is very good, if you want to run on the roof, let's press this guy forward, let's see what happens, nothing at all, why now here comes everything okay, so raise the roof, this little hook rises to throw it down? completely automatic, you lower it up, the rear windows come, something good and let's see if the front one goes up.

If I keep holding the switch, it's not as irritating. I have to go over to the door panel and roll up both front windows. take a quick look at the outside of the car and take it for a spin, okay there you see it has a matching beige horror soft top, very very nice. I've never been a big fan of beige hoods because I think they show more wear and dirt than the black ones. But damn, they look good when they're clean. You get a glass rear window with a lovely defroster, as do the chrome taillight surrounds and chrome trim at the top of the license plate area.

You have some nice double tubes down. There, what can I tell you? It's just a really nice car, my glasses are fogging up, oh God, okay, let's get back to this thing, God, for the air conditioning, I don't care if it's doing windows, I really don't, I really don't. I couldn't turn on the air conditioning here this morning because it fogs up the window, so I'm sure I'll turn it on now. Okay, seatbelt on. We have our sport on. I'm going to turn off the traction just for a moment. Shits and giggles uh there you see only 35,000 miles on the clock on this thing uh more wood and leather on the steering wheel a little weird the shape right where I want to put my hands at ten and two you see the bumps there uh there's a transition from the wood to the leather and uh, I don't know, you know, I think it could have been designed a little better.

I don't like to feel the transition, but you know, look at that, the palm leaf that fell the other day was obviously not an anomaly, huh, coconut lake, these rural palm trees here will apparently kill you. Hopefully, a bird was perched on one of those branches when it fell. I can only hope, oh God, that he ran onto one of the fronts and waited. for the doors to open maybe we already have music, let's see, I don't know, you know, I'm not a Bob Seeker fan, I'm sure he was great in that risky business movie with you know who the submarine commander is. the 928 and all that, but sometimes I don't know, Bob, you give me a pain in the butt, okay, let's go for a spin again.

This Peter's neighborhood, so I don't exactly want to do my you know, punk driving like I do. Most of the time it waits until we hit the road for that, but in the meantime I'll give you a report. A much stiffer ride than you'd expect from a much sportier Jaguar. You really feel the bumps in the road. The direction. It's pretty well connected to you, uh, you know, the brake feel is pretty good, um, I don't know if old people really love this, you know, when it was, I mean, I guess they did it because they bought the damn things, in fact, uh, the buyer of this car used to have a two-person household with four cars and wrote a check for it, so obviously they bought it, but it's a lot sportier than I would have imagined.

It reminds me of people who, you know, were a nice old couple. At the Mercedes dealership he said: give me the best Mercedes you have. They ended up selling him an amg gt and i think it was like the model r we sold outside of europe a while ago. They live in this really upscale neighborhood with premium cobblestones. streets when they drove him home it was like they were in a Le Mans car on cobblestone streets. He's an 80 year old guy. You know he had to get rid of the car in a month. He couldn't stand it at all.

I know this is nothing like that, but you certainly get a lot more, you know, bumpy sports road ride than you'd expect in a car that's not really designed to be a true sports car, I mean, it's a four-seat car, even if the rear seats. they're what do we say for babies on flidimide or maybe just for a philosophical discussion about what they're for, but you know, even if it's a sports car or a British camaro or a British corvette whatever you want to call it, it should be a bit. a little softer on the butt than this, it really surprises me and you know, kudos to Jaguar for that, it definitely feels pretty sporty for a guy like me, morning traffic sucks, everything sucks these days, you know, the virus He stole and the media heard about it. it's getting out of control i don't know anyone who's died yet i read about herman cain he seemed like a good guy it was sad to see him go but something probably would have caught him uh no one else i know but i'm sure he's still out there and i still don't wanna.

You know I'm not one of those guys who thinks it's a hoax. I know it's out there and I know it's real, but I don't worry about it until someone coughs. near a Walmart or something, that great v8 sound coming out of the scar that really helped sell these things and move them to a different level. Jaguar had been all about sixes and strange twelves for a long time and, uh, the v8 was a very welcome update. There is a kick down. I made a little video driving home last night on the interstate. I'll trim it at the end.

The car drove great up to 90 or 95 miles per hour and you know, there it is. I mean, I have a beautiful and stable address. I have a nice brake feel. I have very little wind noise for an 18 year old soft top convertible because the car was obviously very well made and I will say this car is a tremendous

bargain

uh Jaguar xk. Is this thing 35,000 miles 02 mint carfax mint condition well kept service records is half maybe half of what an o2sl 500 would be with the same stats although frankly I think in some ways it's a better car and I think that jaguar just doesn't do it?

It deserves that kind of depreciation so a smart guy can get this car or a similar one. You know, the cream of the crop xk for money. That is just nonsense and it is a car that is reminiscent of the E type. It is a car that did know you. Jeff Lawson's mast involved in it and it's a beautiful beautiful piece well made electronics Ford great engine without a doubt a great engine it's really and truly a collectible

luxury

car

bargain

and you know a guy with something you know a nice and big garage somewhere. Did you know I'd want to think about putting something like this on?

Why the hell not? And if you're going to do it, why not British racing green? Even if it's a bit

clich

é. Anyway, there it is. I really appreciate you taking a look. I'm going to go to work. Maybe I'll even have a little more whiskey this morning because why not one of those days we'll get over the stifling humidity and look forward to cooler weather? come on, but anyway this channel still works, don't you dare think it's going away, it's not, we'll find a way to transfer the name to another, you know what you've got, and we'll make it all work as it happens time, and uh.

We'll keep moving forward, so I appreciate you taking a look today and I'll see you next time. Take good care of yourself, I'm telling you I'll give you one more hammer here as I make this bend, there probably won't be any cops around. Listen to that, I mean, it's a sporty Jaguar, nice things, take care, see you later, interstate, this is very nice.