In 1982 Lynx Engineering, up til then mainly specialized in building very nice re-creations of the Jaguar D-Type racecar and an softtop version of the Jaguar XJ-S introduced the "Lynx Eventer". The Eventer was a shooting brake version of that same Jaguar XJ-S and the result was a very stunning looking station car, that according to the press in those days resulted in a car that looked better than Jaguar's original; to be honest I completely agree with the press and even though Jaguar's descision makers stated that Jaguar wasn't in the "Estate-business", the negligence to build a Shooting Brake version of the XJ-S wasn't a very strong one... in hindsight the Eventer looked much more a classy Jaguar product than what the 2000s gave us including diesels and run-of-the-mill four-door stationwagons...

 

The conversion from XJ-S Coupe to Lynx Eventer included stretching the roof, building  a new flatter, but smaller capacifuel tank to allow a perfect flat floor to emerge, replacing the rear sidewindows with new much larger one-piece glass. And then there was the one-piece tailgate. No further stiffening of the XJ-S was needed, the heavy C-pillars could prevent the car from twisting.

 

All in all more than 60 Lynx Eventers were built in various versions, the early 1990s facelifted version sporting a re-design of the tailgate's hinges.

 

Interestingly, Lynx Engineering actually were somewhat forced to develop the Eventer because of an impeding factory Jaguar XJ-S convertible-project that might have compromised Lynx' core business at the time, the Lynx XJ-S Spider conversion. And how wrong they were.... 1983 saw the birth of the XJ-SC, a semi open top cabriolet of the XJ-S (not competition for Lynx'conversion) and it wasn't until 1988 that Jaguar finally introduced the XJ-S Convertible, 13 years after the introduction of the XJ-S Coupe. And even that car still left space for the Lynx Spider since the Lynx was more advanced than Jaguar's own version...

 

Conversion from a regular XJ-S to an Eventer would set you back some 7,000 GBP in the early 1980s, a full Eventer (using a brand new Jaguar XJ-S) would be available at 28,000 GBP.

 

The very smooth lines of the the Lynx Eventer are evident in this photograph. Journalists at the time rated the conversion as one "that Jaguar should have done" or even "better looking than the XJ-S Coupe".

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 


 

1988: The totally over-the-top Lynx Eventer in Paolo Gucci-dress.... 

 


 

This is the 2nd generation Lynx Eventer based on the facelifted XJ-S (1991-1996).

 

Especially from the rear end the improvements made by Lynx Engineering become obvious as well; the hinges of the tailgate are no longer on the outside of the car which looks way nicer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Text: copyright Bram Corts

 

e-mail:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.