Jaguar World Magazine Mk2 owner's guide July 08 Back Issue

Earlier this month, I was fortunate
enough to be invited to work with the
Jaguar team on the 2008 Mille Miglia
retrospective event. I was part of the
support crew for NUB 120, the famous Alpine
Rally winning and aluminium bodied XK 120,
one of four Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust cars
on this year’s Mille.
Every competing car is followed by a support
car, and this year those support cars were XF SV8s
– which gave us a great opportunity to test Jaguar’s
newest high-performance saloon on some very
testing roads. You can read about the conclusions
drawn from that ‘test’ in the Mille Magic feature
starting on page 37, but what was of particular
interest to me, aside from the driving experience
itself, was how the Italians along the route reacted
to the Jaguars, old and new. The simple answer is,
they reacted to them with great enthusiasm.
At every stop-off point for the competitors I was
impressed at the number of Italians that not only
took a great interest in NUB 120, but who also
knew the significance of the car. However, given
the nature of the event it’s only natural that the
spectators who took the trouble to look at the route
and visit the places where they knew the classics
would be stopping were likely to be enthusiasts, so
what was more interesting still was the reaction of
people to the XF at our non-scheduled stops.
These stops took place regularly as we generally
tried to jump a little way ahead of NUB 120 and
then parked up to see it come safely by, which
meant numerous pauses outside cafes or at
garages – wherever suited best. At each of these
stops, a small crowd of people always gathered
by the XF, keen to look around and inside the car.
Everyone seemed to know what it was, and all
seemed equally impressed. Knowing nods and
murmurs of “Jagwaaare, Jagwaaare” were the
order of the day!