A most complicated car by any comparison. The massive 12 Cylinder engine is truly "shoe horned" into the engine bay, along with a daunting array of engine and car support systems. A high speed engine with 12 cylinders, places unacceptable demands on conventional ignition systems and Lucas developed the Opus system with this in mind. Contact breakers give way to magnetic pick ups which cause pulses to be fed to an amplifier, every time a spark is required. The amplifier has the difficult task of charging the coil during the very short dwell period and switching the current off at the exact instant that the spark is needed. Many of the car and engine systems are interlinked for protection and the car generally has a very high level of automation.

The car has now been in this collection for some years and continues to be very successful at Wedding Hire. It was in poor condition when first purchased and has been repainted from its original Light Blue, to the present Old English White. The transmission has also been extensively repaired. A rapid means of transport, with a top speed originally specified as approaching 140 MPH.

General Information
REGISTRATION NUMBER	GBL 281N
AWMMT Cat No	121
MANUFACTURER	Jaguar
PARENT COMPANY	British Leyland
MODEL	XJ 12L
MILEAGE	76560 SEP 89
YEAR	1974
ENGINE
CUBIC CAPACITY	5343cc
BORE	90mm
STROKE	70mm
CYLINDERS	V12
COMPRESSION RATIO	7.8:1
VALVE GEAR	Single OHC per bank
FUELLING	Twin Electric pumps
CARBURETTORS	4 Stromberg
IGNITION	Lucas Opus (Electronic)
HP/BHP	284 BHP @ 5750 RPM
TORQUE	294 ft/lb @ 4500 RPM
TRANSMISSION
MAKE	Borg Warner
TYPE	Automatic
NUMBER OF FORWARD SPEEDS	3