One of 63 coach-built Jaguar wagons makes for the most distinguished grocery-getter
We love wagons. There’s a campy quaint nostalgia to them, with a form-follows-function appeal that yields a style and charm all its own.
Sporty wagons, especially, offer a unique contrasting character and breadth of talent. Functional packaging, yet able to cover ground far quicker than the station wagon you grew up with in the driveway.
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The gun metal grey Jaguar you’re looking at began life as a top-spec XJR-S, with a 6.0lt V12 taking pride of place in its snout. And yet, its original owner must’ve thought the svelte two-door British coupe was lacking in practicality.
Enter Lynx Motor Company, a bespoke coachbuilding company from Derbyshire England.
When the Jaguar XJS launched in 1975, Lynx was quick to convert the new sportscar into a four-seater convertible which it dubbed, the XJS Spider.
Jaguar launched its own convertible variant in 1988, which rendered Lynx’s successful convertible program rather redundant – so the coachbuilders dreamt up a sleek two-door shooting brake called the Lynx Eventer.
The first prototype was completed in 1983, with a total of 63 cars converted by 2002.
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To attain one of Lynx’s Eventers – buyers could order a new XJS direct from the Jaguar factory, and have it delivered straight to Lynx for conversion, or you could bring-your-own Jaguar in for conversion. The conversion process took around 14 weeks to complete.
This car originally began life as a black XJR-S, the most powerful model available at the time, and was purchased by Roland Busselen, a Belgian writer and poet.
Busselen drove the car as the factory intended for two years before commissioning the Eventer conversion through Jaguar Brussels.
It remains the 57th Eventer ever built, and remains the only pre-facelift LHD example constructed. Busselen also asked that the black exterior was repainted in British Racing Green whilst tasking Lynx with fitting a custom and bespoke rear seat. Busselen also optioned special woodwork, Lynx badges and a rear washer and wiper.
The car was sold to a French collector in 2001, before being sold to its current Belgian owner in 2011.
The current owner is said to have known this particular car from his youth, having grown up in the same street as Rolan Busselen.
The car was sent to UK Jaguar specialists, KWE, for extensive and full restoration in 2016. The car was impeccably restored and painted gun metal grey (to match the owner’s DB7).
Today, the Jaguar presents as good as new, and makes for an extremely unique yet – we imagine – functional classic.
It’s being offered for sale by an Amsterdam-based classic car dealership named, the Houtkamp Collection, and it can be yours for €165,000 – or a whopping $270,000.
Any takers?
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