1998 Jaguar XJ8 Sovereign review from UK and Ireland

I've only had it for 7000 trouble free miles and right now it's only got 40k on teh clock. So far everything works perfectly.

The road to true love had some twists and turns: Having hated the look of Jag saloons all of my life, my mum did the unthinkable and bought an S-Type (to my mind, another ugly Jag) and that, strangely, was the start for me. After a test drive I knew what all of the fuss about Jaguar was about: driving them just makes you smile. To this day I’m not gone on the exterior style an XJ / Sovereign (I think) but I really did dig the interior when I saw one. Man the dash is Cooooooool. I waited until a car with 33,000 miles showed up in my meagre (Stg) £7000.00 price range (7 years old and I’d have to pay €4k import taxes to make it Irish) and bought the 4.0Litre Sovereign. With petrol prices rising through the roof and Irish Yearly road tax on the Jag being €1350.00 you might think I’d have lived to regret it, but NO. My advice: Do yourself a favour and treat yourself. The car is a ‘cream in your pants drive’ and it’s got ‘ambiance’ in spades. In Ireland they are still sufficiently rare to turn heads and there’s always the sense that your arrival has been noted by bystanders (if that kind of thing is your cup of tea). The stereo can handle anything from easy listening to hardcore metal pretty well at pretty loud volumes, but the speakers can’t take acid techno without distorting. This car was designed to kill stress and you’ll even totally dig driving it slowly. The buzz with this car in one word is “SERENITY”. That said the big cat ain’t one bit short of poke either when the boot is down. But Love must be blind; now I’m even beginning to like the outside styling. A car that’s guaranteed to get under your skin. Ya gotta just Love it.

7 years old and it’s got auto dimming rear-view and side mirrors which I think is one of the star features. The memory for three different drivers settings is just sooooo handy. The long wheel base gives rear passengers as much leg room as the passenger seat in most saloons so people love to travel with you. At the time I also checked out the competition: namely a 98’ Audi A8 and a BMW 740. Verdict: Hard seats an unemotive interior though each were nice to drive – neither had that “Serenity” thing going on. Stress will end up giving you a heart attack or eczema some day – do yourself a favour and buy the Jag.