Colin Cave is under strict instructions from his eldest son to never sell the series 1 Jaguar XJ6 that’s been a part of the family for more than 40 years.
Not that the retired plumbing and heating engineer from Colchester needs any encouragement to keep hold of the Big Cat he bought for £2,500 in 1974, a car described when it was launched as “the best this nation can offer”.
“It’s my pride and joy,” says the 76-year-old. “Even though sometimes I don’t feel up to taking it out, and I don’t go far in it when I do, I enjoy getting it out and polishing it and cleaning it.
“Over the years there was the odd occasion when I got to the stage where I thought about selling it, but my eldest son Trevor always said don’t ever sell that dad, I want it.
“I would say ‘where’s your money then?’ He said he’d owe it to me but I said ‘it doesn’t work like that’. He’s in his 50s now and still says he wants it, so when I go it will go to him.
“He’s always been a Jaguar person and he’s always loved it.”
The best car in the world
The Jaguar has been used as a wedding car for three of Colin’s four children, and its period sable brown paintwork and cream vinyl roof still look as good as the day it left the factory in 1971.
Back then, when Jags looked like Jags, the XJ6 was the ultimate in affordable British luxury, marrying Jaguar’s typically keen pricing with classy styling, a high-quality interior and a silky-smooth 4.2-litre straight-six engine.
Often proclaimed as the best car in the world during a production run that spanned more than two decades, the XJ6 was rapturously received by the nation’s motoring press.
CAR magazine voted the XJ6 as its Car of the Year in 1969, legendary motoring journalist LJK Setright writing: “The Jaguar is not merely remarkable for what it is, but also because it makes redundant all cars that cost more.”
Motor said the Jaguar set new standards, its “combination of performance, comfort, roadholding and quietness unrivalled at the price with very few faults”, while Autocar described it as “unbelievable value. The best there is… If Jaguar were to double the price of the XJ6 and bill it as the best car in the world, we would be right behind them”.
READ MORE ABOUT SOME OF OUR GREATEST CLASSIC CARS WITH
A series of articles on our Cult Classics site.
One true motoring love
Colin had bought and sold a number of cars before finding his one true motoring love, the first a brand new Morris Mini Traveller bought for £550 in the mid 1960s.
“I never really felt like I had a motor car with that one, and I traded that in for a second hand Vauxhall Victor estate,” he says. “We had three kids at the time so needed an estate and that was the first time I really felt I had a motor car, with a leather interior and good paintwork.”
A Ford Zodiac Abbott estate came next, a huge car bought to tow a horse trailer to show jumping events where Colin would compete, and then came the car that would ignite Colin’s love of luxury British saloons – a Daimler Sovereign.
“By the time I bought it, it was starting to get a bit tired, but it was still a beautiful motor,” remembers Colin.
“It used to make me laugh, because we were in something like that people always used to try to burn you up.
“I would be going along and could see somebody come roaring up, so I’d put my foot down hard on the floor, look in my mirror and all I could see was a black cloud of smoke. Maybe they thought it was a James Bond car or something!
“I took it back to the garage and said this car is burning more oil than petrol. He said ‘that’s a good sign if it’s burning plenty of oil.’ Of course I was naive and believed him!”
Colin’s wife Valerie convinced him to trade the Daimler in for a seven-seater mustard yellow Volvo estate in 1973, vetoing his plans to buy an E-Type …
I cried my eyes out after selling the Daimler
“I cried my eyes out after selling the Daimler, and told her I was going to get an E-Type,” he says. “She said ‘aren’t they a sports car with two seats? We’ve got four kids, how are we going to manage with that?’
“I said ‘leave the kids at home!’ but we got the Volvo, which looked like a yellow hearse. I now wish I’d got an E-Type for about £1,500 with the prices they go for now.”
While Valerie loved the Volvo, which cost £1,000 more than the trade in on the Daimler, Colin and the children were not so keen.
“She loved it but then she didn’t have to drive it,” laughs Colin. “It was very basic with no power steering, it was like driving a bus – you could barely turn the steering wheel for love nor money.
“It was so noisy compared to the Daimler. I spent hundreds on insulation trying to get it up to the Daimler and, of course, you could not.
“The kids used to fight to sit in the fold-down seats in the boot but, after a while, because they had to face the wrong way and look out of the back window they felt sick as pigs.
“I had to keep pulling over for them to be sick, and no-one wanted to go in the back after that.”
81.5% of customers could get a cheaper quote over the phone
Protect your car with tailor-made classic car insurance, including agreed value cover and discounts for limited mileage and owners club discounts
World-beating Jaguar XJ6
After a year or so with the unloved Volvo, Colin found his forever car, the world-beating Jaguar XJ6 that was to become such an integral part of his and his family’s lives.
“It was lovely, with power steering, quality leather and genuine walnut everywhere,” he says.
“It was starting to look a bit tired, and I ended up taking it off the road for a couple of years to rebuild it.”
As well as adding a Webasto sunroof, Colin used an original Jaguar workshop manual to guide him through dismantling and rebuilding the engine and gearbox.
“I did most of the work myself in a workshop down the bottom of the garden, using this fantastic manual that has everything right down to the nuts and bolts,” he says. “I stripped the whole thing right down and took pleasure in taking the engine to pieces and putting it back together again. My dad used to play about with engines and he passed it on to me.
“I had the cylinders rebored and heads re-skimmed, and the only thing I changed was the braking system. The original series 1 brakes were not too clever so I upgraded them to a series 2 system, and now they’re fantastic.”
While the Jag was off the road, a split-screen VW camper served as family transport.
“We could get everybody in there because there were no restrictions about seatbelts etc back then,” says Colin. “I used to be able to get four in the front and another few in the back. I had a whole kids football team standing up in the back.”
For years after its rebuild, the Jaguar was in regular use, but these days it’s used sparingly for occasional trips out in the sunshine, where it attracts plenty of attention.
‘Cor, like your car mister’
“We were driving around an estate looking for a particular house my son used to live in to see what they had done to it,” says Colin. “We’d got the sunshine roof back, and this little boy on a bike, he couldn’t have been more than about seven or eight years old, called out as we went past: ‘Cor, like your car mister.’ That does make you feel proud.
“Another time, we were sat in a cafe down at Mersea having a bacon sandwich, and from where we were sitting we could see people standing there with their mobile phones taking pictures of the car in the car park. That’s nice really, and you think to yourself, ‘I don’t need the money, so why would I sell it?’
“It’s not the sort of car that’s going attract silly money like an E-Type, and it’s worth more to me than the money it would fetch.”
It’s the type of car that sparks impromptu conversations wherever it goes, whether in car parks or petrol stations. But while in days gone by starry-eyed boys might have asked “what’ll she do mister?”, meaning how fast, today’s more eco (and money) conscious motorists tend to ask the same question, but meaning how many miles to the gallon…?
“The answer is maybe 12-14 miles in town, or 20 to 25 on a run, so not many,” laughs Colin, who says the series 1 is considered to be the best of the XJ6 breed and, in terms of sheer class, a world away from its modern equivalent.
READ MORE ABOUT SOME OF OUR GREATEST CLASSIC CARS WITH
A series of articles on our Cult Classics site.
They had good quality and class
“You still get that smell of a quality car when you get in, that smell of leather and something about it just hits you. You’ve got the walnut all around you, and it’s genuine walnut, not this artificial stuff like now.
“You might see a slight crack here and there that’s developed over the years, but it’s all genuine old stuff. The modern Jags look very similar to any other car. You have to look to see the badge, whereas with the old cars you didn’t have to, you knew it as soon as it went past you.
“They had good quality and class and I’m afraid we’ve lost that, and will probably carry on losing it.”
All the more reason for people like Colin, and one day his eldest son Trevor, to keep these majestic old Jaguars alive to raise a smile from small boys on bikes to people in cafe car parks alike.
