As we head towards grey, cold winter days I thought to cheer myself up I should buy another toy. I've given myself a budget of 3000. So what can I buy? I've always fancied S type Jag, great style + heritage. Within my budget I can find many excellent examples. One I'm currently looking at has one owner, 32,000 full service history, 12 months MOT. Only seen exterior and interiors pictures which clearly shows it's in excellent condition.

Question; has anyone ever owned one?

Any feed-back would be most helpful.

Think this should be in the 'Other Vehicles' section.

You're brave. There is an old auto express GUIDE

Fellow at work bought a cheap low mileage "S" type. He suffered a lot of electrical gremlins, final straw was the immobiliser not allowing him to get home after a night shift. He got off lightly compared to the chap that bought an X type though

And these guys thought I was mad buying an Alfa 166

Yeah. A guy at work i once knew had a 3.0 s type. It was always letting him down. Always moaning about it. But, Id still go for the big engined R version

My uncle had the 3 litre S type as well. He left it on our drive when he went on holiday, so we took it out to "keep the battery charged" (with permission) and it was a luxury barge. Quiet, smooth, refined. Leather, faux wood. The faint odour of golf clubs.

The quintessential JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGG

He did seem to have a few issues with it though, though I don't recall anything catastrophic. Servicing can be very expensive, but I expect you can find specialists. I imagine it's like owning any older performance car.

Auto gearbox and parking brake issues seem to be seroius concerns for anyone thinking of buying one. This has now got me thinking, maybe it's my heart rather than my head taking me down the S type road.

Go for it! I love the S-Type! We bought a 2000 model year one a couple of months ago for £1700; a 4-litre V8 with just short of 100k on the clock.

Lots of electrical gremlins (heater doesn't work, central locking is iffy on the remote, steering wheel controls for cruise control and phone absent, etc), driver's seat a bit nasty...

I could go on about the bad bits, but IT'S GOT A 4-LITRE V8.

The plan is to fit some wheel spacers and ludicrous arch extensions on the rear, then MrsC is going to paint some preposterous flames down the sides.

I would LOVE a Type-R as a genuine runaround, but this is as close as we'll get for now. They are so cheap at the moment, it's almost bangernomics.

Incidentally, the reason I've not mentioned the Jaaaaaaaaaag for a bit is that it has been away in Cardiff having a new, trick exhaust fitted.

There is a BIG comedy rant coming up about that. Watch a space near here...

Mmmmmm

Interested to hear about that Jim.

You been to see Charlie at Prospeed?

We have been to Pro-Speed, Toby. Details to follow in my Jag thread, hopefully by the end of the week...