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The job of building an upmarket shooting brake that would be a worthy successor to the Aston eventually fell to Jaguar specialist Lynx which, in 1982, came up with the XJ-S Eventer. The ugly buttresses of the factory coupe were swapped for a long, graceful roof and an exquisitely shaped, tapering rear side window styled by Chris Keith-Lucas of Lynx. Pininfarina couldn't have done it better and the car struck an immediate chord - with more than the country-house set, too. Rather than being an impractical 2+2, the XJ-S was now a useful four-seater, with much improved over-the-shoulder vision. It was such an obvious conversion, one can only wonder why Jaguar didn't do it itself.
The Eventers were built on a custom-made jig. A stamped, ripple-free, one-piece roof was added and the rear bulkhead was moved back, giving an extra 3.5 inches of legroom in the rear. On early cars, the tailgate was adapted from that of the Citroen Ami Estate, which must be rarer in the UK now than an Eventer. As well as having a tendency to rot, they also featured exposed hinges, which weren't quite the thing on an upmarket machine. Later Eventers used Renault 5 tailgates, though these weren't much less rust-prone.
Around 65 Eventers were built, 47 right-hand drive and 16 left-hookers, and all but three were V12s. Paolo Gucci put his name to a special version that must rate as the ultimate in flash: semi-precious stones around the gearshift which had a solid silver knob, fitted suitcases, a leather-bound logbook and solid silver ignition keys. Mmm, tasty. The price? One hundred grand in 1990, although the car remained a one-off after the Gucci family lawyers claimed that Paolo Gucci had no right to use his name to endorse the product.
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