XJ-S Anniversary Special: Ed Abbott, Senior Development Engineer, XJ-S
The Jaguar Enthusiast Podcast
XJ-S Anniversary Special: Ed Abbott, Senior Development Engineer, XJ-S
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Term
V12 engine
A V12 engine is a type of car engine with 12 cylinders arranged in a V shape. It helps the car run smoothly and powerfully, often found in fancy cars.
Term
straight six engine
A straight six engine is a car engine with six cylinders lined up in a row. This design helps the engine run smoothly and evenly.
Term
convertible
A convertible is a car that can have its roof folded down or taken off so you can drive with the top open and feel the wind.
Brand
Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust
The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust is a group that looks after old Jaguar and Daimler cars and their history, making sure people remember them.
Car
Jaguar XJS
The Jaguar XJS is a fancy car made by Jaguar for long-distance driving. It was made for many years and came with different types of engines, including a powerful V12.
Concept
apprenticeship
An apprenticeship is when someone learns a job by working with experts and practicing the skills, instead of just going to school.
Concept
experimental workshop
An experimental workshop is a special place where new car ideas and parts are tested and worked on before they are made for real cars.
Concept
experimental road test
Experimental road testing means driving new car versions to see how well they work and if anything needs fixing before they are sold.
Term
driving permit (levels)
To drive a Jaguar car at the factory, you needed special permission. There were three types: just starting the car, driving inside the factory, and driving outside on roads.
Term
G-force (1.5 G)
G-force is the feeling of extra weight you get when a car turns fast. 1.5 G means you feel one and a half times heavier than normal.
Car
Jaguar E-Type
The Jaguar E-Type is a famous old sports car that many people loved for its looks and speed. The XJ-S was made to replace it.
Part
alloy wheel
Alloy wheels are car wheels made from special light metals. They help the car drive better and use less fuel because they are lighter.
Term
fuel injection
Fuel injection is a way cars get fuel into the engine using small nozzles. It helps the car run better and cleaner than older systems.
Term
gear ratios
Gear ratios are how the car changes speed and power when you shift gears. Changing them can make the car start faster or go better on highways.
Concept
GT touring car
A GT touring car is a car made for long trips that is both comfortable and fast, but not as sporty as a race car.
Car
Jaguar Series 2 XJ
The Jaguar Series 2 XJ is a fancy Jaguar car made in the 1970s. It was a popular and well-liked luxury car.
Concept
British Leyland
British Leyland was a big company that owned many British car brands, including Jaguar. It had a lot of problems in the 1970s that affected the cars made then.
Concept
fuel crisis
The fuel crisis was a time when gas became very expensive and hard to get. This made it tough for cars that used a lot of gas, like big engines.
Concept
carburetors
Carburetors are parts in older cars that mix gas and air so the engine can run. They aren't as good as newer fuel systems at saving gas.
Term
automatic transmission
An automatic transmission changes gears by itself so the driver doesn't have to do anything.
Term
manual transmission
A manual transmission is when the driver changes gears themselves using a stick and pedal, instead of the car doing it automatically.
Term
buttresses
Buttresses are parts of a car's shape that stick out near the back roof area to help the car stay steady when driving fast. Some people thought they looked ugly.
Concept
aerodynamic stability
Aerodynamic stability means how well a car stays steady and doesn't get pushed around by the wind when it's going fast.
Term
radio cassette
A radio cassette is a car stereo that can play music from cassette tapes, which were like small plastic tapes with songs on them.
Term
rolling resistance
Rolling resistance is how much the tires push back when the car moves. If it's high, the car uses more fuel to keep going.
Term
emission legislation
Emission laws are rules that say how much pollution a car can make. Car makers have to make sure their cars don't pollute too much to follow these rules.
Concept
rolling road
A rolling road is a machine that lets people test cars without driving them on real roads. The car's wheels spin on rollers so they can see how well it works safely inside a building.
Part
dampers
Dampers are parts that help stop the car from bouncing too much when you drive over bumps, making the ride smoother.
Concept
homologation
Homologation means a car is officially allowed to race in certain competitions because it meets the rules and has been approved by the racing authorities.
LIVE
This is the Jaguar enthusiast's podcast. Jaguar enthusiast magazine has teamed up with our heritage partners, the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, to track the human stories behind one of Jaguar's best-selling model ranges. Over a period of nearly a quarter of a century in production, it evolved through V12's, straight six's, convertibles and special editions, carving out its own legacy.
As one of Jaguar's longest-running models, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, we're going to explore the highs, lows and lasting impact of Jaguar's misunderstood masterpiece, the XJS.
Our guest on this episode is Ed Abbott, one of the key figures in the story of Jaguar during the XJS era. Ed began his career at Jaguar in the 1970s, where he worked as a development engineer on the company's road cars. His work spanned chassis, suspension and performance development, giving him a front row seat as Jaguar navigated one of the most fascinating and challenging engineering chapters in its history.
So as we celebrate 50 years of the Jaguar XJS, it's a pleasure to welcome Ed Abbott to share his memories in sites and stories from an extraordinary career in engineering that really did pivot around the XJS.
Welcome to the podcast, Ed Abbott.
Thank you very much, Wayne. I'm great to be able to give you my angle on the development of the XJS. I feel very proud and sometimes humbled that I was in that position as an apprentice.
And then within three years of my apprenticeship starting, I was in Jaguar experimental.
And in the centre of the world that went on to development, I was lucky to first of all work in the experimental workshop as an apprentice.
And then my next transfer took me into what was the experimental road test under the legendary Norman Dois.
And I was surprised at that move because he doesn't really like having people around him too much, especially if they didn't know what they were doing.
But I went in there as an apprentice for a three-month stint in August 1973 and managed to stay there for the next 12 years.
So in that time I was involved in every aspect of the XJS from the early development days through the pre-HE, the HE, and then the 3.6 AJ6 variants.
So it was part of my daily life in between all the work we did on saloon cars, but it certainly became a firm favourite of mine.
So I feel very lucky that I was part of that story.
So if we go back to your days before Jaguar, I think it's safe to say that you were not best friends with academia.
And you were one of those kids that liked to take things apart and make things with your hands but didn't quite enjoy school much.
Well I think I was born or a spanner in my hand and I struggled at school with academic work, but of course there was no real practical alternatives apart from woodwork which I enjoyed which didn't count for Didley Scott really in secondary education.
And I was, I enjoyed the scouts and making things but again it didn't count for anything really.
And I was just very lucky when some close family friends suggested that the only answer was either to go to see as a marine engineer or get a job in the motor car industry.
Of course being in remote parts of East Anglia, that was a long way away from us.
And none of my immediate family were petrol heads, they did my car magazines, my mother was a lifeline, voxel owner for reasons unknown.
And one of my uncles, a farmer had a mark one Jaguar but we certainly didn't live around cars but I loved anything that worked mechanically.
And so I was very lucky when a family friend suggested when I was 16 that perhaps a career in the car industry might be the answer.
And once we'd established where it was and I started writing letters off you know I was on the road to possibly getting another apprenticeship but I didn't really know what it entailed where I would go.
It was just an angle to pursue and luckily I wrote off letters to most manufacturers but I had an inner like from voxel at Luton which wasn't too far away.
Then a couple of weeks later one from Jaguar I had to go to a place called Coventry and so I was put on a train and off I went for two interviews and subsequently was accepted at Jaguar.
They basically said report to Coventry on about the 17th of August 1970 and not why I went.
Well how did it appear to someone who allowed you to come from pretty rural area to arrive in the motor city of the Midlands there?
What were your first impressions of it?
Well the first impressions it was big, most of my peer group appeared to have transport other motor bikes.
A couple of apprentices turned up whose parents were dealers around the country so they came with brand new cars and a good friend had a brand new MG midship which we thought was bonkers when you were 16 or 17.
Another friend had motor bikes I didn't have anything so I needed a motorbike pretty damn quickly.
But riding across Coventry was quite futuristic ring road at the time which Coventry could build because most of it was in bond and going to the Radford factory which was the Daimler known throughout Coventry as the Daimler which obviously Jaguar had acquired in 1960 because I didn't know any of this.
The training school was based there and so we rocked up at the training school and we were received there and had a weak induction.
We all sat in alphabetical order and that they give talks which was pretty freaky to stand up in front of 30 other kids and talk about something for 10 minutes without repetition.
But after a few weeks of that we were let loose in the training school and had to go and stand by a bench that had a vice which was exactly the same height as your elbow when you were standing up.
And a selection of files which you had to learn the names of and then given things to make which I thought crikey this is good fun and start to fire my way into making things but then we worked out that these things had to be made to a thousand to an inch.
And of course by then we were being instructed about my chromators and all sorts of fascinating things and hardening things with case hardening and then went on to learn to weld gas welding, arc welding.
And then into the machine shop and learned to turn on lots of ancient lathes and things so incredibly well rounded first year of practical training.
And then they sent you on three months since somewhere in the in the Jaguar Empire which for us for the first two years was somewhere at Radford so we sent around the machine shops.
And of course but in 1970 Jaguar just starting to build the V12 assembly plant which is a bright new world of shiny equipment.
And of course Jaguar had made money in the 60's and suddenly we were investing big time in the all new automotive automated equipment.
And the V12 production line to the engine was a new shining example of automated excellence for this bright new shiny thing called a V12 engine which when you first saw it in its you know built up it was a magnificent piece of kit so that was impressive.
But there were some characters at Radford in those days that you were learning from.
There were lots of characters and at that time you know Jaguar or Dame were still making buses and there was a guy on the bus production line.
Jaguar was still making fleet liner buses and there was a guy called Mad Mick who was in charge and putting the radiators on the back of a fleet liner bus.
And if they had put the front axle in and it had the back axle and the engine at the back once you put these radiators on the whole truck the whole bus chassis would do a giant wheelie.
And the front would go 30 foot up in the air much to everyone's excitement especially the overhead crane man who could have ran into it and the foreman was supposed to go basically ape ships but it was very entertaining when he did that.
But there were lots of characters everywhere and but they were all sold to the earth.
People and I worked with a guy called Yankee Bill and it wasn't until years after I left Jaguar that found out that he'd stayed on you know in England after World War II.
He'd been an airframe fitter for the American Air Force United States Army Air Force and stayed on married a local girl and that's why it's called Yankee Bill.
Because he's an American and lovely man and he's put the pipeline on the buses for the brakes.
So everywhere you went there were interesting people but there would have been because there were a lot of people there.
You know Radford was a big manufacturing you know facility for Jaguar or the axles were made there.
Had his own press shot you hear the thump of the press machines knocking out parts for the sub-frames and stuff.
The all Jaguar engines were tested on a test bed before they were set up to Brown's Lane.
So he had this big workshop with like a cathedral of power with potentially 50 engines straight sixes and V12s all humming away on a test beds giving off glorious plumes of burnt paint coming off them.
In entirely unhygienic and never could it be happened today but grid floors with coolant and petrol and everything running mixed up together.
But it's just a fantastic place to see the quality that every engine was tested before it sent to Brown's Lane with a ticker on it,
a ticker on it saying tested, fit it and drive it.
Great beginnings but of course at Radford you would have seen lots of lumps of metal and components but you wouldn't have seen any cars.
So eventually you did get to the place where the cars were being seen and that was Brown's Lane.
So what was the conduit between you leaving Radford and clouds of Brown's Lane?
Every three months of the apprentice they get you together outside the training school and hand out your next instruction on a piece of a full paper where you were going.
And you were hoping upon hope to go to Brown's Lane the commercial apprentices who were taken on with us went there on day one because all the commercial activity was at Brown's Lane.
But the only vehicles you can see at Radford was the Daimler Wagonette of 1898 in the in the Radford showroom and maybe a series one XJ.
So one day I received my instructions and I had spent time working in vehicle safety at Radford where all the crash testing was.
So that was when the first XJ SS arrived which was called XJ27s or universally known as the 27 at Jaguar for crash testing.
So they were before any cars got to Brown's Lane for testing before they even were engines on.
They had to really hone the crash impact performance or the XJS because obviously the XJS had to conform to so much more legislation that the E-top ever had to uneven the XJ6 series one.
So we were doing crash impact tests on early cars and I was entrusted to build engines for crash testing and they had to be the same weight as a production engine.
The only way to achieve that was to use lead shot instead of oil because when they did a 30 mile crash impact they didn't really want three gallons of oil going all over the place.
But they couldn't afford to crash a real engine so I was about the only person who could build an engine up and scrap bits to be crash tested against wars at Mara.
So I had three months of XJS or XJ27 at Radford and then my next move was to Brown's Lane to work in the experimental workshop where the first of the XJ27s were being arriving and being things like molding the heat shields.
The heat shields were under the axles and the heat shields for the exhaust were all being done by guys who were drawing up and coming over and measuring cars and then two weeks later a bit of timber to arrive and we'd fit it.
So I was only involved a lot of early XJS hands on work in the experimental workshop because having got to Brown's Lane you were then aware of this man who was holding this higher steam and revered.
It was called Norman Doors, a chief test driver and of course if you were a serious petrolhead all you ever wanted to do was go out in a real jaguar on the highway but at that time very few ordinary employees went out on the road.
It was very futile and left to the experts and you had to be a director or Norman Doors or one of his engineers to go out on the road and drive a jaguar so that seemed a far long way off.
But you saw him from afar and you saw his work from going to another mysterious place called Myra which turns out to be the Motor Industry Research Association test track just near Nanesan, 17 miles away.
And so suddenly there was this whole world of car testing and high speed banking at Myra. So suddenly these words do is Myra banking and 100 mile an hour and he thought crikey that sounds exciting but by then I had a bit of a reputation of being a man motorcyclist and jumping over humpback bridges and coventry of the canals and I thought well they were pretty steer clear me for a while because there might be bad news.
But then amazingly but three months later we had another instruction saying I was going to go to experimental road test which was the name for Norman Doors's department.
So I timidly arrived at his very basic office which was a 12 foot square office inside the main experimental workshop with tin walls.
And you can look out the workshop straight onto the engine ramps and of course at that time to drive any jaguar you had to have a driving permit and there were three levels of permit.
You had a permit to start an engine which means you could sit in the car, start the engine but couldn't go anywhere.
You had an internal permit which allowed you to drive around the factory and you had an external permit which meant you could drive on the road and literally a handful of people had external permits.
So I managed to get an internal permit when I worked in the department at Radford that fixed four lift trucks and they had me fixing four lift trucks because they were so idle.
But one day I said I wanted to test them around the factory and they said you can't do that and I'm going to permit and I said well I'm not going to fix anymore.
So I said well okay well you can have an internal permit but whatever you do don't pick anything up with the thought of truck because it caused a strike.
But I had this document I had an internal driving permit which was the first stage we were getting an external permit but when I joined Norman Doors I think I had a very little chance of ever driving a jaguar because my reputation preceded me.
So I became an observer for the two engineers doing the bulk of the work at that time, Peter Taylor in Richard Creswell and I go to Mara and this is in the days before we had computers or a lot of data loggers.
So all the temperatures were recorded on a thing called a coma which was just an analog temperature gauge, big temperature gauge with a big swing needle.
But next to it you had a switch panel which went from one to ten and each number corresponded with something going on in the engine, top hose temperature, oil gallery temperature, gearbox oil temperature, air off rad, back axle temperature.
And when you were doing testing at a switch quickly from one to ten right down the temperature before you move onto the next speed and write all these down.
And when you go around the banking at a hundred mile an hour you're pulling about one and a half G and you suddenly realise you can't actually write when you're...
So you had to wait until you get down the straight, quickly scribble and stand and then you realise you were starting to feel a bit sick.
So that was all very, very entertaining but it was very exciting to be able to do this stuff.
And then another thing occurred to you had a lunch outside the factory on expenses which was a hitherto luxury that you were afforded as a test driver outside the factory.
Amazing.
When was the moment that you realised that this car that was in very different departments being testing was going to be the new Jaguar that was going to be the replacement to the E type, roughly speaking?
Clearly it had a working title as XA27 and it was a sports car. Naturally it was a busy time because we were developing the Series 2, XA6, the coupé was coming along.
We did lots of other things on brake development and so on.
But clearly it was going to become the next Jaguar because it shared so much from the saloons in terms of suspension brakes and so on.
There wasn't an awful lot of test cars and the only time we really started to get really excited was when they said we needed to test the alloy wheel because the XS was going to be introduced on a 6 inch by 15 inch alloy wheel called the Ken alloy.
And of course it was Jaguar's first ever alloy wheel.
The first alloy wheel was on the C type or the D type I think in 54-55 but this was the brave new world of alloy wheels.
And suddenly people were very excited to be being aluminium and therefore lighter than we could might break.
So we had to come up with a test to test it to destruction.
And so that was the first real XJS test to make sure the alloy wheel wasn't going to break because that was freaking everybody out.
And we did that by testing, going around and around on an airfield near Litchfield, wearing out tires every 20 minutes but that took three months to do that.
But we then had to do an obviously hand brake test and wicket test but there is very little series R indeed have done on the XJS and to it came to preparing the press cars and trying to get it to accelerate as fast as the outgoing V12 E type.
Because this was the big challenge wasn't it that it had to be perceived by the public as an advancement something better than what had gone before and that as it turned out proved to be a bit more of a challenge than perhaps some people thought it might be.
Well yes, the XJS adhered to the same V12 engine albeit with fuel injection which gave about 15 horsepower but it was 200 kilograms heavier than the E type.
And obviously jagged out to launch it with the same performance as the E type certainly not to 60 so we had to do some work on gear ratios just to get the thing off the line quicker.
But we got there in the end and the first press tests were very encouraging but the first press cars were well breathed on to be quiet and handling well.
Those press cars you know work was done to perfect the front anti-roll bar rates and the rear anti-roll bar which was not necessarily that needed but it entered production with a 9-16-3-a-roll bar.
But of course it also had a brand new very sophisticated tire that done not and jagged work very closely with to give the XJS sporting edge in terms of sharpness of steering.
The XJS had more caster than the saloon it had a faster steering rack so it was straight away with a sharper handling car especially with its nice alloy wheels.
But it was you know very quiet and a lot of people would go out in them and think it was slower until they looked at the speedometer and realised they were at you doing 70 and not 50.
So it had that issue to deal with and once people realised it was supremely quiet and it was a different ballgame.
It was a GT touring car perhaps rather than that sports car but supremely quiet and comfortable and a high-speed cruiser you know you could just jump in it and drive half way across Europe and come back again should you wish.
Was it clear to you that it was going to be something special the XJS?
I don't know if we felt that because we were very excited about you know the coupe the Series 2 XJ was coming out.
The Series 2 V12 saloon was getting very close to being voted car of the year I think in 1976-1777 so that accolade you know for Jaguar of all the manufacturers in the world especially our competitors BMW and Mercedes for Jaguar to be given that sort of accolade.
The saloon was very important and the XJS or the sports car was slightly second fiddle and of course it was a huge time for Jaguar going through fundamental changes from losing its identity as Jaguar cars brands lane and becoming British Leyland.
The XJS was launched as a Leyland XJS so there was an awful lot going on politically and socially within Jaguar at the time of the launch and at the time I think most people were just hoping we were going to survive the fuel crisis which was killing the V12 engine full stop.
In terms of suddenly we had a big lusty engine with quite poor fuel economy certainly on carburetors we had to sort that out and the XJS was launched in the middle of a fuel crisis and in the middle of a Leyland going into self destruct mode so we just hoped it was going to be well received and sell well.
What was the feeling amongst the workforce then at that time? Was it a feeling of underlying insecurity with their jobs? Was there still the pride of Jaguar within them despite the fact that it was a Leyland product? How was the general feeling at the time?
I think there was a big striking 72 which lasted I think 12 weeks which wasn't good and the whole of the hourly paid which was obviously most of the troops were having the couple of terms were being paid by Leyland and some sort of measured day rates being introduced but there was a feeling of we didn't really want to be part of British Leyland but here we are.
There are calling the shots, the most emergent Jaguar's management who had had been at Brown's Lane had gone. We had a new guy called Jeffrey Robinson who was at the launch of the XJS but by April 76 within six months the launch of the XJS had gone and was increasingly being replaced by people who got no idea who they were.
But certainly engineering we're just beavering our way, getting along, manufacturing and making cars but I think the move was, you know, will we have a job in the years time perhaps but the means on which we've got to plot on and to make good cars and try and improve quality because we were at the mercy of bodies coming out of cars of Bromwich which was nothing to do with Jaguar. It's still press still Fisher or part of Leyland and there were lots of things happening that we weren't really sure.
You know how they were happening but they did and we just kept making good cars.
The Jaguar story is full of what might have beans and what might have happened and all that kind of stuff. What do you think of the main what might have beans with the XJS as you look back on its development?
Well certainly in 75-76 we had two aluminium-bodied XJS and we had a department who are beavering away coming up with weight saving ideas and I've got the report still coming up we're trying to get the car down to a much lighter weight.
Jaguar homologated it for motorsport back in 77 and there was a move that, you know, the car had a, you know, had a future motorsport.
Should we be allowed to do it in perhaps the same way as the low drag e-tops were in the early 60s when Jaguar still wasn't involved in racing but could support privateeers.
And obviously Jaguar was supporting Bob Tullius in America with the XJS and there was a mood I think that something could be done with it but that peaked it out by 77-78 so much so that all the press manual XJS press cars had disappeared.
We didn't have a sporting XJS because there wasn't any manuals about because production was 95% automatic anyway and the XJS, you know, sold in modest numbers really in 75-76-77 but from then onwards wasn't promoted by Layland.
You know, we didn't have a Jaguar promotion department and it was just part of the Layland lineup and in the Layland showrooms Minis won in Jaguar's other end so it was, and we were then moving on to develop, you know, other things but it was selling but it wasn't the world of light.
And you had some concerns as now in your role driving these cars of their performance early on didn't you that you raised to your team at the time.
Well, at the time, you know, the development cars always had, you know, the full horsepower because they were test bed engines, they're built by people to exacting tolerances but when you, when they go into production and the castings, you know, we had two, two casters for still in the heads, one in Birmingham, one in Leeds, the casting moulds start to wear and the gas flowing effects.
And no one was really quality, quality concern, no one, no Jaguar owners were complaining about maximum speed so they were complaining about more mundane things like oil leaks or the electric air was not going up or the air conditioning packing up.
But to the test engineers, you go out in cars and think this car is just not producing the power and, you know, we used to perform its tests and do maximum speed tests and write reports into that effect.
And, you know, at one time I had exclusive issues, the M425 to test cars and they were all well below what they should be as I thought.
But all felon deaf ears because we had bigger problems and how fast next year's could go.
But I love this story because you somehow managed to find a little sweet spot between the motorway being finished and the motorway open into the public to effectively take over a motorway and uses your own test track, didn't you?
Yeah, it was in the early early 80s but I found out the M425, which was quite a quiet bit of motorway between right and undone small and what for the M1, what for gap was closed and amazingly for 12 hours, nobody really wanted it.
And when I said, well, can I have it for exclusive use, the police, the county council and anybody else weren't that bothered.
They said, well, providing puts some barriers up so nobody else could get on there. You can do what the hell you like on it.
And so, we were using some friends from the Jaguar Apprentice Motor Club to fill in the gaps in the barriers so that nobody could do a util on the motorway and get involved.
There was a flat bit right to the middle of the M425, so you can go downhill and there's about two miles straight to the flat.
We put time and light right in the middle and we could sort of go to the fire end and get the car really wound up and go for the time and light and go around.
And we did that all night testing early, actually, 40s next years and much to our shagger in the Porsche 911 SC.
Did exactly what they said it would to the 154.1 miles an hour, albeit with 100 kilograms in the front to get the front end down.
But it was interesting because at that time, obviously we used to buy competitors' vehicles to see how they were.
And of course, the Porsche's were always the best competitive vehicle ever drove was a Porsche 928.
But of course, nobody wanted to buy a 928, so they wanted the swanky 911's, which was fundamentally technically flawed, but that's another story.
But you seriously then give us an idea that you were looking at Porsche as the competitor in the market that you were keeping up with.
Certainly, you know, Jaguar, as they had a few Bob would buy a new BMW, you know, we had a 3.0-litre S.I.
We had quite a few 733s, we had a 928 and we had borrow Ferraris and we were borrow all sorts of things by hook up by crook and test them.
And sometimes the engines would even come out and go on the Jaguar Dinos and obviously produce less power than they said.
But that was what everybody did, so we were quite pleased about that.
But Jaguar and we had it, even had a Corvette, which I thought was a fantastic car in 1984.
That was something else, because you could adjust the suspension from being rock hard to bonkers hard.
But it had a sexy V8 soundtrack and it had incredibly wide wheels and allegedly you could pull more G on the corner than anything else and it did.
It was brilliant piece of kit.
You know, that's seen as a competitor in America.
But it wasn't as quiet as it actually is, but it certainly took a lot of boxes if you wanted to go out and impress girls and other flocks at night time, roaring around making a lot of V8 noise.
But yes, we always had competitive vehicles, which was interesting.
And they would have clinics where they all stick on the showroom, look at them and decide whether what we're making was still sexy enough and try and do something about it.
Because they actually has never really got any sexy treatment because aerodynamically of course it was pure from the hand of Malcolm Sayer.
You know, it had to have the front spoiler fitted, which was wasn't in the original design brief, which we called a chin.
But apart from that, it got nothing until, you know, TW R appendages came later.
But you could drive an XS, you know, high speed and though it is rock steady because it aerodynamically.
And of course it had a lower drag coefficient than an E type, which people always sort of very difficult to believe.
But it did, but such was the excellent of its design.
But you know, it wasn't an E type and that's what tasted it, would go.
And the buttresses that gave aerodynamic stability were considered ugly.
And illegal in some countries in Europe early on, weren't they?
Well, Germans rejected quite possibly, quite possibly.
But for me, you know, my peer group loved E types, but I just love the XS because
and the other thing was that by 1975, we had things called radio cassettes and stereo transitions, transmissions.
And suddenly you could listen to your favourite tunes and stereo and you had four speakers in XS.
And if you were into the rolling stones or the stranglers and you were out at night, there was no better feeling of being a fast car listen to your favourite tunes, which you couldn't do.
And I'll say that is the other thing, you know, in the early 70s, the BBC started transmitting in stereo.
Two o'clock, you had a stereo and that was, you know, almost a life changing experience, which obviously today it just doesn't mean anything.
So you had a quiet car, performance and your favourite tunes, what more could you want?
Perfect.
Part of a beautiful girl or whatever.
And you were young and in the 70s, it's part of the XJS dream.
Yes.
But the dream was a difficult one, of course, when the XJS was launched because the political situation, the world was such that you launched the car pretty much straight into the fuel crisis.
And that's not the best environment for quite a thirsty V12.
So were you always aware that a high efficiency engine version of it was going to come that suits on point later?
Certainly, when the V12 was launched as carburetors cars, you know, they were single-digit miles per gallon if you thrash them.
And once we were onto fuel injection, it certainly got into the teens.
And as we realised we needed, you know, to improve matters.
And then we started to develop the V12.
First of all, it was a tender one compression ratio.
And we moved from analogue fuel injection to digital fuel injection, which gave us a bit more.
And even we were, you know, tire technology was getting better.
Rolling resistance. We were measuring rolling resistance.
But Harry Mundy, the great part designer of the V12, knew about this high-efficiency cylinder head that a guy called Raymond Mays had come up with.
And knew that it could work on the V12.
So Jaguar started to develop that in the mid-70s, first of all, on a single cylinder when the test cells.
And then as a slant six, when there was just chopped a V12 in half and ran six cylinders to prove it.
And we had some of those running, which was always strange.
Opening the bonnet and finding half the engine was missing.
But it proved the point.
So we spent really from 78s and 1980s developing the high-efficiency engine.
And that was a game-changer because on path throttle it was potentially 20% more efficient than the preceding engine.
And with axle changes, you know, it gave us, you know, a leap forward with fuel economy.
When the HE was introduced, the 1981 model here.
And the other thing, of course, was we suddenly had a thing called a trip computer, which people could press buttons and see what their fuel economy was.
Which is never guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
But suddenly people could press a button when they were going down the motorway at 70 and suddenly see 22 miles per gallon.
At constant speed.
And thought they were getting 22 miles per gallon, which obviously we were very happy with.
Not realizing that they hadn't taken to account, you know, getting onto the motorway in the first place and warming the engine up.
But the press certainly found the car to be a lot more efficient.
And it came with improved improvements in quality and trim spec.
And suddenly gave the XHS a whole new lease of life from 81 onwards.
I think more than anything, the XHS is a model that was constrained by legislation and the rules of the outside world, far more than any other previous Jaguar model had been.
Were you conscious of that when you were in development as well?
Well, certainly, you know, whereas an apprentice working in vehicle safety, a huge amount of time was sent perfecting the crash impact areas and the side impact.
And the fact that the petrol tank had to be midships, which caused its own problem with fuel surge.
And you would just conscious that from day one, you know, perhaps a year's development went into crash testing before even got to Brown's lane to be built into a running car.
And then once it was at Brown's lane, you know, there was an legislation on headlight height, how much screen the wipers wiped, and so on.
So it had to conform to things that the E type had never dreamed about.
You know, the E type in 61 did not conform to virtually anything.
And just managed to stay in production 10 years without having to change at all hardly.
Whereas from day one, the XHS couldn't be convertible because the Americans were thinking about banning convertibles, which really killed off the British car at car soft top industry almost.
And so, and of course, the next thing is there's emission legislation coming in.
There are lots of issues with housing castellists under the car and the heat, you know, heat impact.
And so suddenly it is a car that had to jump on a lot of hurdles before it turned its first wheel really.
So now you have to do that and still come out, you know, smiling, which it did, and people forget that.
And for you, this complicated matters even further because now you're not just reporting your findings on test to the people who are developing the engines and the engineers who are putting the test cars together.
But there's now new departments starting to crop up in Jaguar, like the emissions department, which before this time had never existed had it.
And when it didn't exist, we knew that there was some reason Jaguar shared emissions with Leland because there were emission marinas running around which always have slightly baffled us.
But in about 1972, you know, we had one petrol pump at Jaguar and an attendant, believe it or not.
And he told me one day we were installing a led free pump and we were most intrigued actually, you know, what that was.
And lo and behold, we then had a led free pump and then from then on the work we did on emission certification snowballs.
And we had to install rolling roads and cabinets that they parked cars in overnight to see how much emissions and petrol evaporated out of the fuel tanks.
And then you know, you know, it is a whole new world of passing legislation so that cars could be sold into America that passed emissions standards that we could guarantee to last for 50,000 miles.
So suddenly, certainly in brake tests, we were running cars on emission durability to prove that they could hold their emission standards for 50,000 miles.
And once we'd put on 5,000 miles with our durability drivers, they go back to the emission department, run on the rollers.
And if they didn't pass the emission tests, we were in a bit of trouble as a company to meet their standards.
So, and of course, the emissions of any engine are dictated by the combustion process in the engine, which is dictated by, you know, fuel injection ignition timing and so on.
And it doesn't matter how powerful the engine was, if we didn't pass the emission tests, it had to be backwardly tuned to pass the emission testing and it cost performance.
And that was just, you know, a price that had to be paid otherwise you could sell the cars.
So increasingly, passing emission tests was more important than not to 60s and things like that.
And this led to all sorts of different experiments with gear ratios and axle ratios to try and balance performance without having to do any more to the engine to make it emit more fumes, I guess.
Well, exactly, you know, the engine was a finite quantity.
Nobody wanted to mess with pistons and valves, but clearly, you could put external pumps on the engine.
We had air injection, which is a very nasty way of making efficient passing emissions, but, you know, had air pumps making noises and more belts and things.
We had catalysts getting hot underneath and putting more heat into everything that had to be shielded.
And, you know, fuel economy suffered as an effect.
And we were putting higher axle ratios into trying to improve the economy or get back economy because the emissions have killed some.
The cars are going slower using more petrol, but they were passing emissions, but that's what the Americans wanted.
And it was a pity they got, you know, the line share of the slower emission it, you know, federal engines.
Your list name is Zuve Jankuar Enthusiasts Podcast.
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In the time that your boss Norman Jewish had been working with Jackie was a long time, he would have seen so many changes.
It would have been looking and feeling like a very different company by the time XGS development came along.
But some of the old fashioned testing things were still just about in use, weren't they?
And in particular, you were still testing the cars out on the public road on particular runs that you had devised around the country.
We had a real-world fuel economy test called the Edchill Run, which went from brown's lane out to Edchill to sunrise and turn around and came back, which was 46 miles long.
And we had sort of waypoints to maintain our average speed, so we're going to warm a car up.
We're going to fill it up, the petrol runs right to the top.
And we did that for a long time, and then we discovered that as fuel gets warmer, it expands.
So we then had a tank in the boot where the spare wheel was or in the XGS.
And we'd actually weigh the petrol before and after the test.
And even measure its economy with a specific gravity meter to find out how much it expanded.
But Norman put great stead on the real world of what cars did on wet days, cold days.
We had roots in Birmingham City Centre, eight laps of going around Birmingham City Centre.
On one occasion, at the height of the RRA crisis of bombings in Birmingham in the early 70s, we were repeatedly stopped because they want to know why the same pair of jaguars have been seen going around the city centre eight times.
Clearly, up to no good, and they never occurred that we were a jagged test engine is.
With one car as a datum car and one car with a modification is trying to work out if the economy was actually better.
But again, in the mid 70s, you know, we suddenly had the European Union fuel economy test to do 75 kilometres per hour, the 120 kilometres per hour, which we did at MIRRA.
And then somebody decided that we could do this sort of test on a rolling road.
Of course, every test now is actually done on a rolling road.
And they don't actually see rain or puddles or other things to slow you down in the real world.
And at that point, we realised that, and of course, these real world tests are driving out on the public highway, a fraught with difficulties of traffic jams and things.
And sometimes we do a test and have to repeat it three or four times.
But we had a figure that we could relate to, that, you know, ten years ago the car would do this and now it would do that, so we could measure performance.
But it took quite skilled drivers to drive in some sort of regularity and still come back to Brown's Lane within a minute and then to repeat ability.
But that all went by the buy as the test increasingly went on to rolling roads.
That was the skill of your job really, wasn't it?
Making sure that the car was driven exactly the same every single time so that the test data actually meant something.
Yeah, that was part of the skill and the satisfaction of doing that.
And you didn't have to go fast necessarily, you just had to drive sensibly within the speed limits.
And if you had to overtake someone you did, you know, there wasn't an economy run.
But, you know, as I say, we had way points and at certain times you had to be at a certain place.
But it did take a lot of skill to do that properly.
And a certain sort of patience to want to do it day in and day out and get it right, which is no different to the guys in the track putting cars together.
But it was a lot of people thought it was barking mad when he could do as much more repeatedly on the rolling road, but we felt that this was a brave new world.
It wasn't really where we wanted to go, but that's where it all went.
And no data loggers in those days that, you know, nowadays it'd be bristling with sensors that would feed into a computer.
I guess then it was just paper forms and what he felt.
It was what he felt from your bum to certain extent.
And when you were experienced, you know, we used to leave Brown's lane to go tomorrow to the north to 60s
and knowing that it had to be a certain performance to meet the criteria to send a car to an important magazine like car or a roller car motor.
But by the time I got to the end of the Brown's lane, you automatically knew where that car really had 285 horsepower, didn't.
And that was just part of our skill.
But the guys in the wood shop creating burr, walnut dashes had those same levels of skill, but obviously nobody ever saw that.
Whereas we were lucky to be able to drive out and measure this, but it took years of experience.
Because Norman was that guy who had that years and years of experience to call on, whether it's brake testing, you know, just getting the brake pedal exactly the right level of field, you know.
German cars tended to have much sharper brakes, which wasn't really what the British market wanted.
So we had to brakes that felt British.
But at the same time, you know, we're well from 150 mile an hour or 30 mile an hour.
And that was always a big ask on a high performance car to come up with brake brake pad materials.
But then Jaguar had been working with Frodo, you know, and Mintx.
And back to the early 50s, all that experience could be drawn on the same with curling dampers and done-lop tires.
You know, Jaguar had used done-lop tires, curling dampers and Frodo brake pads for 30 years.
And it took Norman a lot of convincing.
In 1978, there was another manufacturer called Prairie that actually made tires suitable for Jaguars.
But that was part of the continuity that kept the Jaguar Jaguar suppose.
And this is the interesting bit of this development part of the skill is it's not just relaying this information to your own engineers in Jaguar.
But also those of the suppliers that feed those components into the process like the tires that you mentioned and the development that went into them.
Yes, Jaguar, you know, always supplied all the major suppliers with a test car.
And sometimes we were a bit more and they'd be the done-lop guys in a Jaguar and they start to have a chat.
And we just make sure the car was all right.
And so, you know, all the suppliers had Jaguars because it was a cheap way for Jaguar to develop stuff.
And of course, you know, as soon as there's any problem, you could ring up a person and go straight to them.
And they tell you, you know, what the solution was, you can solve it overnight, virtually.
There was no committee meetings.
Oh, we've got to wait for a committee meeting to discuss this.
And that guy has only been there a while.
He doesn't really know, you know, he's coming up to speed.
You talk to real people who have been doing for 20, 30 years.
And it's a shortcut to sorting out the problems.
You know, we had to do that with tyre development, as we went from, you know, asbestos brake pads,
which has served Jaguars so well for 30 years to semi-metallic brake pads.
There's a huge transition that had to be achieved very quickly from one to the other.
And that was all done because Jagu had a great relationship for Rodo.
And if something we went wrong, you could charge up to Chapel and relief Frith
and have another set of brake pads next day and start again, which I'm sure you can't do nowadays.
But it revolved around people having a lot of experience and good relationship skills with peer groups, other manufacturers.
What do you think the great strength of the XJS is when you look back in all of the work that went into its development?
The outcomes of that development were what were the things that gave it the real strengths that you still rever today?
Well, you know, as you know, I rally one in regularity and stage rallying.
And because the great thing about it is it's immensely strong.
In its service history, I don't think you'll ever hear people breaking transmissions or gearboxes or axles
or the brakes not working or the engines going wrong.
Everything worked. It was normally the supplier stuff from Lucas, like Ariel was not going up and down or whatever.
But it was a mentally strong car.
And it could, you know, soak up the mile.
The engine was relatively understressed.
You know, 5.3 liters producing 283 liters of horsepower wasn't stressed.
Well, the right oil was just last forever.
The same was the transmission and the quality of the leather seats goes without saying.
It was a luxuriously appointed car that, if it was properly maintained,
we'd last forever, but invariably, I think most jaguars were bought by companies.
Run on a company expense for two or three years and then went into public private ownership.
And once private owners were looking at changing 12 spark plugs,
realized that was going to cost quite a lot of money.
They weren't maintained properly, and a lot of them, you know, failed due to poor maintenance
and aren't on the roads today. But, you know, if they were maintained, they'd last forever.
And of course, it's fair to say that, of course, all pretty slow in problems,
products suffered from the fact we had no control over the body pressings made by Castle Bromwich
and the corrosion protection, one as good as it could be.
So obviously, a lot of jaguars succumbed to tinworm fairly early on and died of death.
So there's not that many certainly of the very early excuses left.
But if they do, there's still a great car to own and drive.
And supreme ride comfort, even by today's standards.
There's nothing quite like an XJS, so it gets down the road in such comfort.
No, you know, Bob Knight, you know, was the expert and he'd been at jaguars since, I think, just at the end of the war
and had personally developed, you know, the C type and D type suspensions to windy man.
He'd then gone on to develop jaguars, independent suspension and, you know, the master of rubber bushes
being compliant with that, moving the axles about too much and causing steering issues or bump steer or whatever steer.
And even down to, you know, people forget the seat sits on a rubber diaphragm
that were made by Dunlop and Pirelli and they were, they were set for exacting standard to be just the right strength and bouchiness.
And jaguars spent a lot of time with dampers and obviously the independent rear suspension, they've got four dampers, which means you can have a softer rate and still control the roll.
And all the roll centers were actually bang on and it was, you know, suspension.
And when we used to get competitive to cars, like, you know, the BMWs of the 70s and the Mercedes at swing arms
that, as soon as it's wet, the cars sideways, we were always totally disrespectful to those, those cars that had really compromised suspension.
But they sold in, well as numbers, but they didn't have had the pure suspension drawn through the XST or any of the XS range.
And that's partly why people would say it's a bit soft, but it doesn't matter how hard you drive it, it just stays on the line.
And we were criticized for lack of steering feel, but the Yanks liked it that way.
In the 70s, we would have, compared to American vehicles, we'd have a Cadillac Saville to test.
And any jaguars had three times a road holding of any comparable Yank tank of the time.
So we were fulfilling our criteria to our most important market.
Meanwhile, of course, the frustrated racing driver pressed testers of autocar motor would have a field day moaning about jaguars lack of steering response and so on.
And us testers wanted that, but the directors knew and the import managers, you know, in American knew, the American market still wanted that level of comfort.
Well, the early XJs is have a light on the dashboard that not many people understand what it's for and it bears the letters OD.
But there's all sorts of myths out there as to what that might be or why it's there.
You can explain exactly what it's all about.
Yeah, it's to overdrive. It very simply relates to overdrive. Yes, you know, I think the XS was launched with about 60 warning lights, which freak us out thinking God will be coming on.
But three quarters of the way along on the right-hand side of the white one said overdrive, which never lit up, of course.
But during 1974, we were busy developing a two-speed rear axle, which had an overdrive unit in it, because no overdrive behind a gearbox over strong enough to take the talk of a V12.
But Salisbury developed a back axle with an overdrive built into a giant casting that weighed, I don't know how much, but it was quite a big unit.
But it offered the V12, the option of direct drivers of 307, or an overdrive ratio of 288, which on the Facebook was, you know, going to be a 20% fuel economy improvement, perhaps on cruise.
But it was always going to be an expensive option. It was always going to take a bit of packaging, because I say it stuck out another six inches in front of the diff and it weighed quite a lot.
And because it stuck out about a foot, the standard diff goes up and down a couple of inches on torque reaction from deceleration acceleration.
And so this was going to need quite a bit of clearance in the transmission tunnel to go up and down, which we hadn't really addressed on development cars.
But rather late on, I think it's generally realised it was a bit of a big ask for any overdrive unit to handle 300 foot pounds of torque repeatedly.
And it's going to be quite an expensive option. And once we established it wasn't going to be reliable enough, it was ditched and never went into production.
But, you know, the switch gear was designed to go on the transmission tunnel next to the gear lever.
The light was there, but it never got light a day. There we are, a little myth to spell about that light on the XJS then.
And what do you think looking back and coming away from engineering for a moment and thinking about how you felt as an employee of Jaguar?
What was the change that happened amongst staff morale amongst the culture of the company when there was a change at the top?
Johnny can took Jaguar into independence, and it had a huge impact on the XJS history. What was that impact like on you as people working at Jaguar at the time?
Well, after, you know, Geoffrey Robinson left, who had been there for two years in early 76, we were never really aware who was running Jaguar.
One minute were a big layland plant, but people were coming and going. They weren't necessarily based at Brownstein.
They might be in the layland house in Coventry World. So, nobody knew who was in charge. That didn't help that.
We became part of, you know, Land Rover or Rover and Jaguar Rover Tribe became the specialist car division for two and a half years until that folded.
By 1979, you know, the XJS wasn't selling particularly well, nor was anything quality was getting lower.
We were wondering what was going to happen. A lucky for us Michael Edwards was given the task of sorting it out and appointed John Egan to save Jaguar.
And when he arrived, he immediately realized he needed to start telling people who was in charge. So, Jaguar Topics was re-emerged as the works newspaper, but in colour now it was black and white.
In the mid 70s, but that disappeared under Jaguar Rover Tribe. So, that reappeared as the first Jaguar thing published in the house by our own Jaguar staff, photographed by Jaguar employees.
So, we knew something was happening and he was then that came out virtually every month and we were told that quality had to improve and we were taking over to Castle Bromwich to sort the body problems out.
So, it was all good, but of course that was as most pundits to say what we've heard all this before, you know, we'll give him six months.
But anyway, after six months, he was still there in a year there. And then luckily, you know, we'd already started to develop the HE engine for the V12.
So, we had a product that we could offer the public in 81 Model Year, the new XS with a more efficient engine, different wheels, different trim specs.
The Series 3, which come out in April 17th, I was selling better and better, we got our dealers back and people were being employed to go and sort the dealers out and get them on task.
The Americans believed that we were, you know, John Egan had been to America to ensure the American dealers that we were back on attack.
And suddenly everything was starting to come good.
Actually, six cells, Series 3 cells were going well.
The XS was relaunched as the HE and doing well. And then luckily, we had, you know, the XS raising occurred.
But there had been a sea change thanks to John Egan coming to Jagger, and as his book said, saving Jagger by using telling everybody what the score was.
Look, if we don't sort ourselves out, we're dead. There's your jobs, you know, I'm all right.
But, you know, there's something worth saving here. The trade unions were convinced to accept some pay cuts and have a job or not.
And sensibly, there was some realism with the shops, shops towards the unions.
And everyone realized suddenly, you know, everywhere around Zain could contribute to getting Jagger going again.
And as I said, you know, we had our works photographer, our works magazine.
And suddenly, you know, the offices ran the front. They've been empty for years. We're being re-inhabited by people who have had a passion, you know, to save Jagger.
And the cells organization was reformed, the service organization was reformed, and so on. So we thought we were saved when Jagger was.
And the XJS needed saving. He was a car that you'd successfully launched as a company back in 75.
As you've said, it had difficult start in life with poor sales to the point where in 1980 production actually stuck as they had more cars than they could sell.
But then all of a sudden, there was all sorts of different changes as you just described to John Egan's influence was one.
Another one, though, was the appearance of XJS in motorsport, first with Bob Tulius over in America, but then with Tom Malkenshaw racing.
So there's a development engineer, someone who tested this car by driving it. How did you feel about seeing those XJS is competing, doing well?
And what involvement did you have with the liaison with TWR there?
Well, we knew from, you know, what broad speed had done, and we knew for our own test cells that, you know, the V12 engine could produce serious amounts of power if it is tuned properly.
And so we were keen to do that.
And Tom Malkenshaw from day one realized that if he talked to the factory, we could give him a heads up walk and fail him or couldn't fail, which is good.
We, an art department, after we'd asked by Jim Randall, the engineering director, found an old test car that was sold eventually to Tom Malkenshaw racing for five grand, but I don't know if it was or not.
And so we were keen to see it succeed.
And quite sensibly John Egan had kept, you know, just one toe in the water to see if it would work or not.
And Tom Malkenshaw, you know, was very clever in understanding what he needed to do.
And he had the backing of the Jaguar Manufacturing Facility at Radford to make camp shaft blanks and make things work.
And there was a direct liaison, the guy called Tom Seal, involving, going about support to helping them.
So we were very keen to see it succeed.
And we were told all about it from, you know, Jaguar Topics, what they were doing.
You know, it's backed by a motel Jaguar putting a fuel bar in but don't worry, we're not wasting money that we could spend on your wages sort of thing.
And, but because, you know, we had invested a lot of our thoughts and aspirations and seeing, you know, the broad speed coupé's work over two years period.
So we'd all sort of been slightly burnt by that, so nobody was getting too excited at that stage.
But hoping it would come good.
But, you know, anybody who'd been involved with the X-S from an early stage, and as I said, you know, we'd had aluminium bodied X-S in the mid-70s.
And we knew that suspension was so fundamentally right once you got that nail down while we were removing rubber.
And with manual transmission and Jaguar homologated about ten axle ratios, you know, he had lots of options to play with.
And clearly, you know, the engine development guy Alan Scott was on the case.
And in short term, they got the car really competitive.
And at the same time, X-S sales were starting to come up with the HE, you know, as you said, production stopped for three or four months.
And Jaguar only made 400 cars for 1981, 80, for 1980 model, and Jaguar made 400 X-S in all time low.
And I think, you know, by the time they got to the mids in the 80s, it was up to 10,000 a year, so it just shows you the turnaround.
And of course, by some of the X-S finish production in 96, you know, is Jaguar's, you know, 21 years of production.
It must have been quite a source of pride, although obviously a race car developed a long way away from what you've developed for a road car for production.
And you must have been quite proud of seeing that car that you'd worked on and developed go and win the European Touring Cup Championship in 84.
Well, it was very, very, very satisfying.
Obviously, a lot of our Jaguar PR people, some of them were ex-apprentices, got called Alan Hodg,
who was still involved with them as a PR, so he could tell us our Jaguar predispositor meetings in what was going on.
We had the Jaguar Topics magazine.
Of course, we had a new thing called VHS Video, which again, you forget, but that was suddenly coming on strong,
and you could watch a video of the car's actually racing, and they were available, you know, to employees to see.
So suddenly, what was happening, you know, at Valunga, or anywhere, you know, two days later, you could watch the Tome on a VHS cassette and suddenly it was a lot more real.
And the fact that it's happening at Kiddington in 40 miles down the road, you know, it was a lot more, you know, impactful at Brown's Lane,
because people will see what's happening, because the next thing is the cars could come to Brown's Lane and be shown off.
And as Jaguar got more involved, and the cars went from white to green, it was clearly, you know, Jaguar behind it,
and everybody's behind it, and wanted to go and watch them.
And of course, when the cars were racing at Donington, you know, there's a huge number of Jaguar employees,
who may have been paid to go and watch them.
So it was a great morale booster, and if you take 84, I think it worked at Donington,
it was also the year of the Jaguar privatisation, and all the employees got shares,
which you could immediately sell about through its later, and make a few bombs.
So it was a win-win situation, and the XHS was really at the front of that crusade of making Jaguar great again,
and we started to believe that Jaguar was great again.
Your future career would move away from Jaguar by the late 1980s into motorsport, wouldn't it?
Yes, it was ironic that while I was in Coventry, and my brother worked for Ford Main Dealer in 1982,
we got involved in racing a Fiesta, you know, one-mate championship, we had races in Britain and Europe,
and of course, while I was developing the XHS, you know, the Ford to race,
I could go and talk to Jaguar people in the drawing office saying, you know,
if I off the driveshaft angles by one degree, you know, what how many horsepower they give me,
they'd work it out, you know, and tell me things that Jaguar learned at Leamon,
so that was a great thing, and clearly after a couple of years of motor racing as a hobby,
I realised there was an alternative to career.
Norman was about to retire in 85, 86, and I thought, well, I've been in Jaguar 15 years,
it was changing very quickly, and I thought, well, perhaps I have a career in motorsport now,
and left, and I was then lucky that Sarb, great Britain, who was only owned by the Sarb factory,
wanted to get back into motorsport, having pulled out a rallying in 1978,
that we can start to develop both Ford's and Sarb's motor racing,
and I was very lucky that everything I'd learnt as a vehicle-proofing engineer,
under Norman, and others, I could go into motor racing,
especially with that we did a lot of motor 24R races where really, you know,
you've got to have a reliable car, and you have to work out, you know,
how long brake pads last, where other teams didn't seem to really think about it,
we could work out, you know, and how long pit stops would last,
and went on to the 24R races in Britain, in 86, 88, and 92,
which is a pretty good record.
But I always thought she was running a 24R racer at Le Mans for Jaguar,
but that's never happened, and probably never will do.
Well, we have just had a look before we started recording this interview
at your XJS rally car that's proudly sat in your garage,
looking fantastic, and I'm told it goes just as well,
and you are rallying an XJS in a series where in order to enter,
you must have a car that rallied in Peter,
or at least was homologated for rallying in period,
and all the people who know Jaguar listening to this will be now chiming up,
saying XJS is never rallied, except they could have done, couldn't they?
They could have done, and people forget that Jaguar obviously won the REC rally
in 51 and 53, the next K120, and Jaguar won the Monte Carlo rally in 1956 in the Mark VII,
but it's right that nobody's ever rallied in XJS.
As I said, Jaguar homologated the XJS with the FIA in 1977,
amazingly by 1979, and homologated it with a 5-speed gearbox.
So on paper, it could have rallied,
but when I moved from regularity rallying to stage rallying,
you know, I needed a lot of paperwork to convince Motorsports UK that the car,
you know, could fulfill all the criteria needed for historic rallying,
which there are lots of paperwork,
and so I needed to supply pictures of everything and convince them
that a Jaguar could race in rallying,
and few people did rally XJS's in period,
but only for a couple of rallies and then disappeared,
but there was nothing to stop anybody doing.
So obviously people raised them as truly as they did in America,
and privateers raised XJS's in the late 70s,
but I was lucky enough to get full accreditation to rally XJS
for Motorsports by Motorsports UK, which can be used throughout Europe,
and I have a dossier of pictures to prove that it is no eligible.
So when I rock up for rallies,
and it's not a mark, one or a mark to a score or two or seven,
or any other esteemed rally car,
I'm eligible, but because when I first started rallying
and asked for an avigator,
people said he must be a barking man,
but when my first rallies was only all a man,
and a great avigator called Andrew Durden,
who originally agreed to navigate for me,
but by lunchtime we were sort of 10th,
and he sort of started to say,
well actually I think I was a bit wrong about this XJS,
it's actually bloody quick,
and I said, well I told you so,
and of course it's very reliable,
and a lot of people always say it's a bit big isn't it?
So well, it feels, doesn't feel big inside,
it's a reverse tire just to sit in it,
and it feels like a glove and it doesn't feel that big,
but then again, if you've been driving them for 50 years,
you tend to mentally know what bits will fit through where,
but that is always,
and it's obviously a source of great interest to marshals,
you know, the usual one where's the petrol tanker,
and does the air con work,
and I still insist on having the electric windows working,
because that is an advantage for your code driver,
as you come screaming to control,
he's trying to find paperwork,
and I've got one hand free to wind the window down,
he saves three seconds on not winding the window down,
but yes, it's a lot of emusment,
still marshals who I've seen it before,
we're doing it in comfort,
but I'm appalled that how much I've reduced,
you know, Bob Knight's refinement,
and the noise and vibration in the harshness of the NVH
is absolutely bonkers mad,
but you know, that's all in the cost of performance.
So, I'm looking forward to doing the Roger Albert Clarke rally,
this November, which is a five-day event,
starting in Kamathan, and ends in Carl Isle,
and that's going to be a huge test of reliability
and management,
because you need service crews rocking up with tires and fuel
and sandwiches and coffee,
and equal amounts to finish it,
but I like to think, you know,
it will do well,
and finish,
and I can perhaps tick that off and retire.
It's another example of what might have been for the XJS,
but that you're actually making happen,
which is fantastic.
And is it also for you an opportunity to live out some of the dreams
that you might have had as a young development engineer
and test driver back in the day where you wanted to do things
to the car that you knew would make it better,
but you couldn't for various reasons of it.
Well, that's right, you know,
I was involved in the early stage in doing, you know,
the pavvy testing,
which is very intense,
it's trying to shake the car to bits.
And the weekends,
rallying,
an Austrian A40,
converted to 1275
with disc brakes and servos,
but every other rally,
someone would break.
And I thought,
if only I was rallying in XJS,
it wouldn't keep breaking,
and of course,
you think, well, no one's ever going to be doing that
in the month of Sundays.
And during the week,
we had a lot of punishing test schedules
to try and break Jaguars.
And one thing is, you know,
invariably, you couldn't, you know,
there were stupid quality issues that would stop them,
not the electronic ignition on early V12s
and things like that.
But you wouldn't break transmission brakes
or drivetrain,
and you just knew how much punishment, you know,
it could take,
and that was part of Norman Durse's legacy
that wanted to test Jaguars in extremists.
And, you know,
the cars were bulletproof,
and I always knew that,
once you've got rid of a lot of the rubber,
you had a very focused car
that could soak up the punishment.
And if I do a European rally,
I can jump in the XJS,
you know, and drive to Salzburg,
900 miles away,
and other people who put my cars on transporters
and saying, well,
don't you want to put it on transporters?
So I enjoy driving 900 miles,
proving you can still do that.
Or be it, you know,
I'm stopping at a petrol station every two hours,
but I am doing 22 miles per gallon at a steady 80s,
nowadays, but not 15,
but,
and it's a way of just thinking,
repaying all those fantastic ears I had to test drive,
and still people thinking,
crikey, that cars are a lot quicker
and I thought it could be.
And,
and I was amazed when I first started rallying,
as people said,
I asked my favourite Jaguars,
and I think, hang on a minute,
you've taken the PI,
double S, or with the Mickey's.
No, no, no, that was really,
you know, when I was a schoolboy,
I saw the saint on TV,
nor was it one of the next XJS.
And I said, you,
for real?
Yeah, I love seeing your car at the well done.
And a few more people came out,
and I thought,
normally people are only too happy to say how horrible.
I think the XJS compared to Anita,
but suddenly there's a whole generation of people
saying, I like the XJS,
nothing, crikey.
Thank you.
And it makes me feel a bit happier.
Yeah.
What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding
that people have of the XJS that you'd like to correct?
Well, I think that, you know,
there is seen as a big,
lardy rust bucket to a certain extent,
that they can corrode.
Of course, Jaguars inherited that from,
you know, the bodies that we got from
Prestil Fischer or Castle Bromwich.
And they did have, you know,
a significant amount of rubber in suspension,
to give you that lovely ride comfort.
And Jaguars engineers always thought
that people would replace rubber bushes every five years
when they service their cars.
But that wasn't to be because most of the rubber bushes
are quite difficult to get at.
And, you know,
there are an awful lot of rubber bushes.
And if, after 30 years,
the car feels soggy, it's not surprising,
because the rubber has got a bit soft.
And plus the fact,
the XJS came out on a very sophisticated tyre
for the time that done not D1.
And that tyre in original 205-7015 form
was no longer available after 1980.
So people putting tyres on XJS
as they're putting modern equivalents
when some of them probably aren't up to the same quality
and give the car much soggy feeling.
And people have got this attitude
that if they put wider tyres on it,
it will somehow handle better,
which is totally the converse is true.
And you need to keep the tyre fairly narrow
and to keep the sharpness of steering.
So the perception is,
it's just, you know, slightly unreliable, thirsty,
spongy car, which it shouldn't be,
but it very rarely are,
because they haven't been maintained properly.
So what do you think,
as we work our way through the 50th anniversary year,
which must be amazing for you to get your head around,
haven't been there from the beginning.
There's 50th anniversary year.
What is the thing that we should celebrate the most about the XJS?
What's its major accolade point?
Well, I think,
it went through several incarnations clearly.
You have V12s, you have V6 cylinders,
you have full convertibles, you have Carrelays,
you have the facelift of 1990,
which I never liked,
but a lot of people would do like.
You have the XA,
you know, the Tom Moore Control incarnations,
you have the Jaguar Sport incarnations,
you have a few specializing incarnations.
So there's an XJS for everybody,
or more or less,
you can have a 3.6 and a better fuel economy,
and a manual gearbox.
And there's a car I've come of age,
and the early buttress styling now is definitely very retro 70s.
Retro styling is popular with a lot of people,
and it's very different.
And even the original dials,
which are straight out of Star Trek,
I still love, you've got vertical gauges that work,
and it's all on the line,
you're more or less okay,
but that was ahead of its time.
And the 15 warning lights was ahead of its time.
And so many things were on cue for that era,
but perhaps ahead of the time,
and people never got,
which perhaps they do now.
And as I say,
21 years, the E type lasted,
you know, 12.
Every other Jaguar seems to last six years,
but the XJS has spanned 21 years.
And I think everybody knows what it is.
And as I said,
it can be a car for everybody,
because there's so many variations of it.
You look back on your time with Jaguar fondly.
Very fondly.
I was lucky enough to join Jaguar
in an era where Still William Lyons was a revered name
and came into the factory now again.
Bob Knight was there.
And in a Jaguar stores in the experiment,
we still had the Limon Pit gear amazingly,
sitting there totally lost in all the other paraphernalia.
I had a fantastic boss to work for,
who's a mentor and a friend.
And again, such a fantastic team of people
who were all perhaps in the 70s,
a bit disenfranchised with what Laylin was doing,
but they're the same guys who've been at Limon
and made Jaguar winnally mon.
Fantastic designers, engineers, technicians and mechanics.
And I got to know every one of those,
unless they're all dead now.
But we survived Laylin,
and John Egan did save, save Jaguar,
and Ford obviously saved Jagu some more.
And we now move into more on certain times,
hopefully somebody will save Jaguar.
And it's still a lovely name.
And it's a household name.
And it's a name every Brit is proud
to think it's British, you know?
And as the leafing Jaguar,
it's an iconic symbol.
Well, the XJS, when it came out 50 years ago,
was a model that changed the fortunes for Jaguar eventually,
and also changed its direction,
brought a whole new load of technology
and design style into the brand
that brought it into a totally new era
and you've really helped us to understand
what it was like to have been amongst all of that at the time.
So we'll end up with, thank you very much.
Well, thanks.
It's a pleasure.
I can talk about next year's forever.
Well, that's all for this episode
of the Jaguar enthusiast podcast.
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About this episode
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Jaguar XJS, Ed Abbott, a key development engineer, shares his journey from apprentice to pivotal figure in the car's evolution. He discusses the challenges faced during its launch amidst the fuel crisis and the engineering innovations that defined the XJS, including its V12 engine and unique suspension. Abbott reflects on the car's legacy, its misunderstood reputation, and the camaraderie among Jaguar employees during turbulent times. His insights reveal the passion and pride behind this iconic model, making it a fascinating listen for enthusiasts.
Original notes
Jaguar Enthusiast Magazine has teamed up with our heritage partners, The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, to track the human stories behind one of Jaguar's best-selling model ranges that was in production for nearly a quarter of a century!
Launched in 1975 as the successor to the legendary E-type, the XJS celebrates 50 years this year. So, buckle up — we’re going to explore the highs, lows, and lasting impact of Jaguar’s misunderstood masterpiece: the XJS.
Ed began his career at Jaguar in the 1970s, where he worked as a development engineer on the company’s road cars and competition projects. His work spanned chassis, suspension, and performance development, giving him a front-row seat as Jaguar navigated one of the most fascinating and challenging chapters in its history.
After his time at Jaguar, Ed went on to found Abbott Racing, a specialist engineering company that built a reputation for extracting performance and reliability from both road and racing machinery. That blend of hands-on engineering expertise and entrepreneurial drive has made him a respected voice in the world of automotive development.
With first-hand experience of the XJ-S from the inside, Ed brings invaluable perspective on what it took to turn Jaguar’s grand touring vision into a reality — and how those lessons carried forward into his own engineering journey.
As we celebrate 50 years of the Jaguar XJ-S, it’s a pleasure to welcome Ed Abbott to share his memories, insights, and stories from an extraordinary career in engineering.
The Jaguar Enthusiast Podcast
Wayne Scott
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