DRIVING JAG

Novelist Julian Barnes roars away in a Jaguar XJ-S convertible, one of the last British prestige cars

MARK GINSBURG

Cars

'When I was growing up, it was rich R. A.F. war heroes who bought Jaguars. Twenty or thirty years ago only wellspoken people with old money would have had them," the writer and critic Julian Barnes recalled as he captained a swank Jaguar XJ-S convertible across Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Barnes and his wife, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh, usually drive a sensible navy-blue Saab 9000i, which they keep parked in front of their northwest-London house. The Jaguar was a somewhat different kettle of fish. "I must say I felt a rather vulgar excitement when I first drove this car, and I quite liked it," Barnes confessed.

The $57,000 XJ-S convertible may be the last of a nearly extinct breed: the lovable, wonderfully woolly English prestige car. Like so many Jaguars before it, this one handles beautifully and has a supple ride. But the new convertible is also a manifestation of affluence and a telltale sign of acute Status Thatcheritis: "When there was a mixture of the Labour government and the oil crisis, people very consciously didn't drive their expensive cars around. They were held to be unpatriotic gas-guzzlers," Barnes explained as the twelve-cylinder lazily belted down pints of fuel while idling. "But given the social climate now, I don't think anyone who could afford the car and wanted it would think twice about making the statement 'Look what a success I am.' And I do think the XJ-S convertible looks very, very classy, not flash. With the top down it looks extremely elegant."

At the moment, Americans in the market for luxurious top-of-the-line convertibles under $100,000 don't have much to choose from. Apart from the Jag, there's the Allante, which hasn't sold at all well for Cadillac; the hoary Mercedes-Benz 560SL (which is getting a stunning, high-tech replacement later this year); the chic, nimble Maserati Spyder; the testy, excitable Ferrari Mondial Cabriolet; and the upcoming open version of the venerable Porsche 944. The XJ-S convertible is a retooling of Jaguar's XJ-S coupe, a bulky luxo-cruiser introduced in the mid-seventies shortly after the beloved E-type sportscar died. For the new body, stylists chopped off the top, and abolished the intolerably tiny rear seats, carving out instead a lidded, locking cubbyhole the origins of which stumped Barnes. "It's fine that it's a two-seater," he said, "but there's this slightly redundant space behind the seats. I don't know how they design these things: whether they decide what the overall length and shape should be and then say, Oh, well, we've got two feet here and we don't know quite what to do with them. In fact, luggage space is quite limited for such a large car, and the trunk is taken up with a huge spare wheel. I can't see anyone having it as their only car. Unless you are a very rich young bachelor who always travels extremely light."

The sturdy folding top, marvelously designed by Karmann GmbH, the West German coachbuilder, is power-operated and features a heated glass rear window (the Rolls Corniche has a plastic one). It liberates the driver when it's down, enabling him to feel the rush of wind and of truly outstanding acceleration simultaneously. ''You relish this car, driving with the top down," said Barnes. ''We drove to Oxford with it down and played classical music on the radio at 90m.p.h.-plus. We got up to 107 on the way there, and 110 on the way back. But it's not so rare to have a very fast car nowadays—I mean, I was overtaken by a couple of Porsches, sure, but the most humiliating moment was going 90 m.p.h. in the fast lane and all of a sudden a Honda Civic came up behind, swerved into the middle lane, overtook, and went back into the fast lane. And at 90 coming back," he added, ''I was overtaken by a VW Golf. So, you know, if you're buying that car, you're obviously not buying it just for the speed." Nor for sportif qualities. For instance, it's available in the United States only with an automatic transmission.

At the launch of the convertible, a senior executive at Jaguar Cars told me, ''If there's one thing we sell, f it's elegance." That's for sure. There really isn't any production car more elegant and timeless than the XJ-S convertible. When it sails past, heads turn— everywhere. Last year I drove an early model in the South of France and parked in the driveway of the grand Hotel du Cap at Eden Roc, whereupon an elderly gentleman from Hanover immediately charged up and announced that he was getting rid of his Corniche in favor of the Jag. But the car's silhouette may be so seductive that quality control will never be an issue, which it should. The assembly of two production-line convertibles I drove, in Los Angeles and in London, bespoke Eastern-bloc Yugo quality, but on a much grander scale. For example, a driver's door was so misshapen that its curve simply didn't conform to the rest of the car's body, and a poorly aligned trunk lid left a gap wide enough to accommodate a thumb between it and the rear fender. The Southern California sun brutally exposed mismatched pieces of the paper-thin "burl walnut veneers," and various scratches were preserved underneath the varnish. The upholsterers seemed not to be working from a common color chart: shades varied by degrees depending on their fabric content. Barnes didn't quibble about the car he drove, however. "The leather feels expensive, like a pure slice of the best cow. There's an art to making a car that tells its owner it costs a lot of money without vulgarly showing it," he maintained.

But I had more caveats. The instrument panel, always a weak point in the XJ-S because of the poor placement of gauges, remains a puzzling combination of plastic that tends to warp, polyvinyl compound, and the ubiquitous walnut. Lengths of lumpy black rubber stripping unsuccessfully masked the uneven gap where dashboard met windshield. This was especially disheartening because it's the section of the interior the driver sees quite often. The safety-minded probably don't buy convertibles anyway, but those who do will note that the shoulder harness is installed in such a way that it gently falls down, like a loose bra strap.

I buy a car because of a feeling about it, land my vague idea of reputation," I Barnes reflected, sipping tea in his drawing room after a week with the Jag. "At this level of price you would expect that if something went wrong with the XJ-S a man would come skydiving out with a Jaguar logo on his back. But I don't think I'm a serious enough driver for a car like this. I wouldn't pay it enough attention. It's the sort of car that has to be consciously driven in a way, it seems to me, rather than a car that you use." Would Flaubert have had one? I asked the author of Flaubert's Parrot. "I think that's out of the question," Barnes replied patiently. "Flaubert hated steel-tipped nibs when they came in, and always used quill pens. I mean, he might allow himself to be driven in one, perhaps. But no, I think Flaubert probably had a Saab."

MANUFACTURER'S

SPECIFICATIONS

1989 Jaguar XJ-S Convertible

• Vehicle type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, two-passenger two-door convertible.

• List price: $57,500.

• Engine type: SOHC V-12.

• Transmission: three-speed automatic.

• Acceleration 0—60 m.p.h.:

8.7 seconds.

• Top speed: 140 m.p.h.

• E.P.A. fuel economy:

12 m.p.g., city; 16 m.p.g., highway.

HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS COURTESY OF LE MERIDIEN LONDON.