"Jaguar was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company by Sir William Lyons in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before developing passenger cars. The name was changed to Jaguar after World War II to avoid the unfavourable connotations of the SS initials. Sale to BMC happened in 1966, which in 1968 merged with Leyland Motor Corporation and became British Leyland. Jaguar cars today are designed in Jaguar Land Rover's engineering centres at the Whitley plant in Coventry and at their Gaydon site in Warwickshire and are manufactured in Jaguar's Castle Bromwich assembly plant in Birmingham. The Jaguar XK series was introduced at the Geneva Motor Show on 5th March 1996. The first generation of the series, the XK8, replaced the XJS and was available as a coupé and convertible. The XK8 was the first eight-cylinder vehicle produced since the Daimler 250. The XK8 came with 17 alloy wheels, leather interior, burr walnut trim, and side airbags as standard.
This lovely example is presented in Zircon Blue metallic with cream leather interior. The car has upgraded brakes all round, cruise control, ABS and alloy wheels as standard. It also has electric wing mirrors, fully electrically adjustable seats with memory function and two driver seat positions and auto active headlights. Its sound system is Jaguar AM/FM radio/cassette and has as six-disc CD changer in the boot. The dark blue hood is in good condition as indeed is the car in general with the latest service having been carried out at the end of May this year by Powerball in Taplow. The service history is good with servicing carried out by a mixture of Jaguar and specialist garages and with it only having two owners from new, this example presents itself very well and is offered without reserve."