A classic affliction

Classic cars can be beautiful and rewarding, but they can also be wretched demons with an enormous appetite for time and money.

I have had the “pleasure” of owning a few classics over the years, and they have all treated me with the usual contempt. The same contempt offered by airplanes, yachts and attractive partners…

About ten years ago, while paging through an auto publication, I came across and advert for an old silver Jaguar XJS, the 5.3 litre V12. Naturally this was a “one owner car” driven by a “little old lady” and it needed only a little “TLC”.

So, with my naive boots on, I bought the beauty and had it trucked to a reliable mechanic. The XJS, to me, is a stunning thing.

It has unique styling with its flying buttress design behind the rear window and of course is powered by the super-smooth Jaguar V12.

The beautiful V12 makes cruising a pleasure (when it runs properly) and when given the beans, it sounds magical with its high pitched, carbon emitting scream.

I love the fact that it was designed purely to be an elegant touring car, not some heated up, two-door hatch – it is a boat of a car that gently floats down the road.

“Grace, Space and Pace” as was Jaguar’s motto at the time.

Back to the car that I bought…the short version of what was to come was that I ended up never driving that car, not even once!

I had to spend more than I paid for it on parts, and ended up getting another identical one, using the first one as parts. It was a nightmare ordeal.

However, eventually I had a running and driving “classic”.

The XJS is a real highway munching machine. The car I ended up with was light gold in colour and unfortunately was not a popular vehicle. Being a young guy I had hoped for better comments, however the average female comment was something like “that’s the ugliest car I have ever seen”.

One particular memory is etched into my mind; I was leaving the yacht club in Durban on my way home, and while parked at the traffic light the usual “urban outdoors-woman”, Trish, came up to me as she normally did while looking for something.

Being summer it was quite hot, and the Jag being a V12 was quite hot, and due to some standard technical difficulties neither the aircon nor passenger window worked.

I was literally dripping in sweat, and Trish caused a riot with her hysterical laughter – she laughed at me until she could no longer breathe. It was a sad day for both the Jag and I. Severe humiliation from a woman who was convinced that she had been abducted by aliens…

The car also had Lucas wiring, and as someone once told me: “Lucas was the prince of darkness”.

This was incredibly appropriate and the unreliability of the electronics eventually wore me down.

I fondly remember turning out of Musgrave Road and terrifyingly spinning out as the engine decided to give full power rather than the 40 percent it usually offered up – this gave some innocent pedestrians the fright of their lives.

The continued poor performance, breakdowns and absolutely atrocious fuel consumption caused me to relent and part with the old bat.

You might think that I would have learnt from these mistakes, however being a classic car fan is something that is in you, for worse or poorer (no better or richer here).

See you on the side of the road, bonnet up!