This is the Jaguar XJ 2.7 TD Sport Premium—the last of the lithe, low-slung XJs before everything went full spaceship. It’s the facelifted one, so it looks sharper, sits right, and still does that very Jaguar thing of gliding like a swan while the twin-turbo V6 paddles furiously somewhere you can’t see. You don’t drive it so much as waft, overtakes delivered on a creamy wave of torque while the cabin whispers “leather club” in your ear. Under the bonnet: a 2.7-litre twin-turbo diesel V6 with about 204 bhp, 6-speed auto and rear-wheel drive. It’s brisk rather than brash—roughly a shade over eight seconds to 62 mph and about 138 mph flat out, which is plenty when you’re sitting in an armchair. Economy is the neat trick: around 35 mpg combined, helped by the XJ’s light aluminium construction. So you get S-Class comfort with hatchback thirst. CO? is in the low-200s g/km—impressive for a big saloon of its era. ULEZ reality check: it’s a Euro 4 diesel, and London wants Euro 6 for diesels—so inside the zone you’ll pay the daily charge. Outside it, it’s business as usual: long-legged range and the sort of refinement that makes you take the long way home. Price when new? Around fifty-one grand for this Sport Premium spec—proper flagship money in 2008, which you can feel in the doors, the leather, and the way it shrugs off rubbish roads. Big-ticket kit: Sport Premium trim, heated leather seats, 17-inch alloys, front fog lights and the usual XJ goodies you actually want. It’s the classic fast-lounge recipe—quiet, plush, and satisfying. The service history is the party piece. It’s been pampered at 4,369; 15,374; 32,006; 47,316; 63,067; 78,305; 94,938; 111,182; 123,645; 138,207; 154,717; 166,584; 179,529 miles—and we’ve just serviced it again. While we were there, it had new front discs and pads, plus new front tyres. That’s not just looked-after; that’s mollycoddled. In short: the facelift XJ is peak old-school Jaguar—light on its feet, heavy on charm, and this one’s been maintained like a museum piece. It doesn’t just make journeys shorter; it makes them calmer.