A Future Classic: The Jaguar S-Type
The journalists didn’t like it 20 years ago, but it has surprisingly stood the test of time.
In my opinion, Jaguar are among Britain’s best. Founded in Blackpool in 1922 and originally producing motorcycle sidecars, they build most of their cars here in the UK, and you can still expect to see the same level of luxury in their latest model, the I-PACE, as you could in their first ever car, the SS1, made by the company that would later become Jaguar.
Even industry giants can make mistakes, and it was believed that this is what Jaguar had done in 1998 when they revealed the S-Type at the Birmingham Motor Show. Based on the Ford DEW98 platform, which was also used for the eleventh generation Ford Thunderbird, the S-Type was Jaguar’s first compact executive saloon to be released since 1966 and was available with three V6 configurations or two V8s.
The concept of paying under £50,000 for a 4.0L, wood-trimmed, leather-clad, luxury saloon is, these days, an alien one. 4.0L high-end saloons available today include the Audi S8, the Mercedes E63 and the Bentley Flying Spur, none of which are available for under £100,000, a sizeable jump even with inflation in mind. The S-Type was, even at the time, ahead of its competitors in that respect; the Maserati Quattroporte, whilst offering a Ferrari-engineered V8 (4.2L or 4.7L), cost around double the S-Type’s price.
The S-Type originally received positive feedback from reviewers. It was described as ‘the spiritual successor to the Jaguar Mark 2’ by the Honest John website, and What Car said: “Its handling is still very good, thanks to an agile chassis and precise, accurate steering.” Other big names in the industry, however, had differing opinions. In the third series of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson described the S-Type as ‘Jaguar’s weakest hour’, and the ‘weakest Jaguar ever’, with James May describing the car’s grille as ‘goppingly awful’, saying that it ‘sums up everything that’s wrong with Jaguar’. Despite the influence that Clarkson and May had (and still have) over the automotive world, the S-Type still sold 291,386 units in its eight years on sale, whereas its successor, the first generation Jaguar XF sold only 202,678 vehicles in the same period.
In 2004, James May said: “In 15 or 20-years’ time we’ll look at the S-Type, and we’ll think ‘That’s really awful’”. 19 years on, I think James May made the wrong call. Whilst the grille has not necessarily got better with age, BMW’s current front-end styling has the power to make anything look milder, and, whilst the technology might now be a little dated, the interior has certainly stood the test of time. 70 of AutoTrader’s 103 S-Type adverts have under 100,000 miles on the clock, with the highest price sitting just below £13,000, and the lowest just below £1,000 – the numbers speak for themselves, but a bargain V8 is not easy to come by.
For me, a guilty pleasure car would have to be practical, capable and comfortable, and, on paper at least, the Jaguar appears to be all of them.
Photos – Newspress UK
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