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When does a classic car become a classic car? It’s a question that has been posed and debated many times before, and for which there probably is no defi nitive answer – but what I can say for sure is that, to my mind, Jaguar’s X300 XJ can certainly be considered to have classic status. Yes, even the youngest of these cars is not yet 14 years old, but enthusiasm for this Jaguar amongst those in the know has been growing for some time now, and it’s easy to see why. With curves very reminiscent of the early Series XJs – and intentionally so – its low and sleek looks continue to win many admirers and, though those same looks are shared by its X308 successor, the earlier car side-steps many of the reliability issues that blighted the fi rst V8 XJ. In fact, if you plump for one of the AJ16-powered straight-six X300s, not only will you be buying a car with a deserved reputation for being near bullet-proof mechanically, but one that’s also relatively easy to care for yourself should you be handy with a spanner. Of course, the X300 shape didn’t only house the last straight-six engine built by Jaguar, it was also the last model to be built with the mighty V12, by that time in 6.0-litre form. And that too is a very strong engine if properly maintained – just don’t ever overheat one! In addition to its elegant proportions and mechanical robustness, the X300 boasts a few other attributes that add to its classic status. With 92,038 examples built in total (including Daimler variants), they don’t exactly qualify as rare cars in a broad sense, but in steel-bodied XJ terms they are just that – Jaguar even built more examples of the Series 1. However, the X300’s trump card is its affordability. The example in our buyer’s guide on page 22 is a 65,000-mile full-history Sovereign spec 4.0-litre car, and it’s for sale through an independent specialist for just £3,750. The cliché ‘that’s a lot of car for the money’ has never been truer.