Street-Spotted: Jaguar XJ6 with Wire Wheels (2024)

For a while, ownership of a Jaguar sedan in the US did not require clarification—there was really only one of them. But you had a choice of three pronunciations of the name Jaguar, with Jag-wire being the most shudder-inducing.

You could say "I have a Jaguar sedan," and from the late 1960s through the late 1990s people would nod and picture a curvy XJ sedan of their choosing, because their styling didn't change all that much. You could also call it a Jaguar saloon if you wanted to sound more British.

And unless you opted for the V12, that Jaguar sedan was probably going to be an XJ6, as the V8 option didn't appear until well into the AOL era.

The Series III XJ6 sedan seen here perhaps personifies that long era of Jaguar sedans for most people, one that kicked off in 1968 and built upon the design introduced in the Mark X.

The Series III is the XJ that was produced starting in 1979, and it's pretty easy to tell apart from its two predecessors, as it's the only one wearing vaguely L-shaped taillights. By contrast, its predecessors featured vertical, bullet-shaped taillights.

The US DOT also added some large side markers—for your safety of course—along with larger bumpers. Also for your safety.

What did US buyers want in these cars, first and foremost?

Probably a V8 of some kind with an automatic transmission, if we're being honest here. But Jaguar had to explain why you actually wanted an inline-six with an automatic transmission.

"History under the hood: the Jaguar double-overhead cam Six is a highly refined descendant of the famous Six that swept Jaguar to world glory at Le Mans in the 1950s," ad copy of the time explained. "The present version is smooth, powerful, and durable and mated to an automatic transmission which is standard."

Could it at least fit a couple of golf bags?

Jaguar served up 9.75 cubic feet of luggage space in the trunk, which is about half of the W116 Mercedes-Benz offered at the time.

But that's not important. What's important is that you could arrive at the country club in style, whether you chose the XJ6 or the V12-engined XJ12, and in a reasonable amount of time, as it was the Malaise era outside and there were Chevettes holding up traffic in front of you.

And the XJ6 didn't really differ much from the XJ12 on the outside, so you could probably skip the pricier fuel fill ups of the oil embargo era.

"This they share: the same sleek four-door body-shell outside, and the luxury of rich walnut and leather inside," ad copy of the time said of the XJ6 and XJ12. "And like all Jaguars, the big XJ sedans handle and respond like sports car with all-independent suspension, four-wheel power disc brakes and rack and pinion steering."

One aspect of the XJ of this generation that has largely faded through time is the fact that in Europe this was positioned as an executive car. But it was not very large for its day, especially by American standards, and its length of 199 inches and change is now identical to that of the 2024 BMW 5-Series, for instance.

Not everything about a car's interior boils down to legroom or headroom. So we'd take the interior smell of the XJ—which we imagine to be a mix of leather and walnut wood, with slight hints of oil and gasoline—all day long over the interior smells of new cars today. (They're mostly plastics).

If you've made it all the way to this part of the article, we're going to give you a little treat—we're going to point out something you will be unable to unsee, and you will curse us for years.

And here it is: This car has a Hofmeister kink!

Should Jaguar have kept the XJ model alive into the present day, or had the large sedan outlived its usefulness in the brand's lineup? Let us know in the comments below.