Ah, the shooting brake. That most elusive of body styles. Not always easy to pull off, either. Sure, Volvo did very well with the 1800ES, as did Reliant with the Scimitar GTE, but remember that poor BMW Z3? That’s part of the difficulty, I guess: some coupés (or roadsters, as the case may be) can be turned into shooting brakes, others will never look right. With the Lynx Eventer, the question becomes: why did Jaguar not include it in their range, pure and simple?
The XJ-S, when it debuted in 1975, had big, E-Type shaped boots to fill. And it filled them as best it could, but that just wasn’t good enough. It was born in a troubled company, Jaguar, owned by a troubled conglomerate, British Leyland, situated in a troubled country, the UK. And the less said about the rest of the world, the better. The XJ-S had a very hard few years, then it sort of became accepted as it was, warts, flying buttresses and all.
In July 1981, the High Efficiency engine reared its twin heads. This was a most welcome development, as the V12 now produced close to 300hp (up from 285hp previously) and required less dinosaur juice to do so. Quality control improvements were also noted, and sales finally started to head in the right direction. But there was still something missing: the only body variant available was the coupé.
This is not when Lynx enters the story, because they were already there. Established in 1968, they were initially your traditional repair and maintenance outfit, especially (but not exclusively) focusing on older Jaguar racing cars. By 1974, Lynx started manufacturing C-Type and D-Type replicas, and soon they began modifying contemporary Jags and Daimlers. These included turning the XJC into cabriolets and, from 1976 onward, the XJ-S Spider.
Perhaps because they were busy keeping their heads above water while HMS British Leyland was going down, Jaguar took ages to get in on the drop-top fun (first with the targa SC, but the full convertible only joined the range in 1988), leaving Lynx a nice long time in the sun to rake in the dough. And just as Jag were sort-of catching on to the cabriolet concept with the SC, Lynx wisely presented the Eventer in the summer of 1982.
Coachbuilding was seen as a thing of the past, so contemporary journos referred to the Lynx Eventer as a “conversion”. Well, I don’t know that’s the best word for it, but you can certainly call me a convert! The rear end styling finally makes sense.
Lynx did essentially the same job that Chapron did to create Citroën DS cabriolets or what Ghia did to make Imperial limousines, and they were coachbuilders. The process started with a complete XJS coupé. Lynx cut the roof just aft of the B-pillar, fashioned a new C-pillar further back, welded a roof extension with gutters to the original roof section, built a rear hatch by using the original boot lid and welding a handmade rear windscreen frame to it, built a completely new petrol tank with a filler cap (originally located in the coupé’s flying buttress) on the left wing, reworked the boot structure so the spare wheel could fit there unobtrusively and reinforced the rear end structurally.
Inside, Lynx removed the rear seats and refashioned new ones, set further back and lower, which turned the 2+2 coupé into more of a four-seater shooting brake. But the rear seats could also be folded flat, turning the Eventer’s cargo area into quite a cavernous (yet luxurious) usable space. At least a couple of cars were made without any rear seats at all. Some Eventers were also fitted with sunroofs, but not this one.
Up here in the front seats, it’s all stock Jag XJ-S, as far as I can tell. I’m guessing that Lynx tried to match the colour of the original upholstery for their section in the rear – picking black would have made the job a little easier.
It’s impossible, without knowing the build number of this particular car, to actually know when it was made. Many customers would bring their XJ-S fresh from the showroom floor, but that was not universally the case. This one looks like an earlier car, but that’s because the base car is an early ‘80s XJ-S. For all I know, Lynx might have worked their magic on it circa 1990. There is a very handy website (in French, strangely enough) that tries to ID every Eventer, and this one, though it has been spotted in Tokyo since the 2000s, is one of the “unknown build number” cars.
Lynx carried on with the Eventer until 2002, long after Jaguar stopped coupé production. There was obviously a lot of demand for them. The “conversion” took 14 weeks and everything was done to order by the same super-specialized craftsmen, so there must have been quite a backup. Most Eventers were made on the pre-facelift XJ-S, but some newer cars also got the treatment. At that point, Lynx were feeling confident enough to brand their product, too: our feature car, though it does have an “EVENTER” script, is still badged as a Jaguar, whereas later cars were badged as Lynxes.
In total, Lynx made just under 70 Eventers in twenty years, including 12 facelift cars and only four 6-cyl. models. A modest number, to be sure, but just enough for a few copycats to attempt the same thing: a shady French outfit called Les Ateliers Réunis produced a dozen or so extra cars, without Lynx’s knowledge or sanction, in the ‘90s. Another car was made by a Swiss artisan circa 1983 – he essentially had the same idea as Lynx did around the same time – and by a Belgian one in the early ‘90s.
I have a feeling that the original Lynx Motors Co. is no longer in operation, but it’s surprisingly hard to find confirmation. There is a profusion of companies, defunct or active, bearing that feline name all over the world – some automotive, others not. Schrödinger’s Lynx? Whatever the case may be, and whatever they are called nowadays, companies like Lynx bore the torch of the ancient art of coachbuilding into the 21st Century. The myriad safety regulations, new materials, electronics and other issues have rendered coachbuilt cars almost extinct, but not quite yet.
The Eventer, along with the Volvo 1800ES, the Radford Aston Martins and the Peugeot 504 Riviera (look it up, sadly a one-off) is a superb shooting brake, a true representative of the body style. In fact, because it looks so much better than the coupé it was hewn from, one could claim it’s the most successful of the bunch.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1989 Jaguar XJ-S – Cat O’ Nine Lives, by T87
COAL: #10 1972 Volvo 1800ES – A Volvo Shooting Brake?, by Connor Kleck
1946 Delahaye Woody Shooting Brake – A Different Species of Woody, by PN
What If? Porsche 911 Squareback Shooting Brake, by PN
Vintage PR Shot: 1958 Simca Aronde 1300 Chatelaine – A Shooting Brake For The Chatelaine, by PN
Thanks for a good article on the Eventer. A great car but I am not sure it is better looking than the standard coupe. The last pic show that maybe it is just a bit too long.
Another shooting brake that must be mentioned, I mean if you mention one offs like the Peugeot then surely this one counts as well, the 1976 Jensen GT.
Made for half a year only, a bit over 500 were made. I agree it is an acquired taste but an interesting car. Very luxurious (for the time) having standard AC and elec windows.
Always thought these looked everything the choptop didn’t.
The proportions of the XJ-S coupe are glorious but the execution is covered in cliches that fight each other. The Eventer strips away the nonsense.
Cathedrals need flying buttresses to stay upright.
The XJS had 4-wheel independent suspensions – of a high order – to effect the same, so quite why some Brown’s Laner thought it apt to balance such buttresses atop the rear guards of the already-dubious proposition that was the prototype XJS’s styling is a mystery only made explicable by the presumed drunkenness of the board that subsequently approved it.
In the form of the Eventer, liberated from that superfluous rearward-staunchionery, we finally saw the car at its unquestionable best. Why it was that Jaguar did not add it as RPO may possibly be accounted for by the times of the Eventer’s creation, namely, the era of m’am Thatcher’s ideas that, when there’s no such thing as a society, the posh should never have to share, or do haulage, and the workers can buy a bloody Cortina wagon if they want.
I had no idea that only 70 toffs had purloined enough privatization rent-seekery – dosh – to cough up for one of these: I thought they were produced in their multiple hundreds, at minimum, making this one of Prof T87’s really-not-likely publicly-parked inspections (accompanied, of course, by the usual top-notch essayette).
Speaking of buttress terminology, the stock XJ-S had regular “solid” buttresses, whereas “flying” buttresses would have an open gap under them. The former are like a solid wall, whereas the latter are more like a freestanding strut or beam that “flies” from the ground up to some point on the structure they’re supporting. E.g., the Maserati Merak had flying buttresses, whereas the Ferrari Testarossa had solid buttresses.
Poor M coupe? Well, that’s like your opinion, man.
Indeed, our esteemed prof just got personal
Great find – I love these, and I think unique among custom-bodied Jaguars of this vintage, the Eventer looks like it could legitimately be a factory product. I do think that side glass appears awkwardly long from the side angle, but otherwise, to me it’s a great design.
I’ve read that Lynx used the rear glass window from a Citroen Ami 8. I’m not positive that’s true, but in comparing these images, they do look mighty similar. If true, that would really be an amusing retrofit.
They do look like they are likely the same. I’m sure Lynx went out and measured every suitable rear window to find one that would work instead of paying to have a glass manufacturer tool up a new one. As you know, rear taillights were very commonly reused in this fashion on low volume cars.
My hunch (and it is only a hunch) is that the rear screen came from a Citroen GSA
Looks even more likely.
That looks like a good match.
The Ami8 and the GSA rear windows may even be the same item…
that just ugly, it look like volvo station wagon, not a modern XJS, which I like.
After the Swedish coffin p1800, now the English coffin. I would like a modern Camry with these rear end with two fewer doors. Death to modern regulation .
This is really attractive! I will join others in lamenting that Jaguar never regularized it within the lineup, whether factory built or subbed out to the coach builder that created it.
To my eyes, the XJ40 works slightly better as a shooting brake, foreshadowing Jaguar’s forays into wagons with the X-Type and XF Sportbrake. On the Eventer, the long rear window on the side profile feels a bit off, but I agree that the back end looks fantastic!
I REALLY like the XJ-S.
I also like the XJ40 wagon. However, it has Volvo 240 Wagon Rear-Window-Frame-Syndrome.
Were I to descend into (the insanity of?) XJS ownership, this is the variant I would like to have. From the least practical to the most practical option, it’s just about perfect after two slices of a saw and a little fiddling about, somehow it vaguely looks like a longer, lower, and wider Vega wagon!
I too like these, although I would have chosen a different color. I’m just not a fan of this shade of blue. At minimum maybe BRG, and then I’d have required the interior of course to be a proper light color. Or even black like in their brochure. Even if that is just a bit too Harold and Maude for me.
The economics of this whole thing confuses me. From what I’ve read elsewhere, the conversion cost around $25K (today’s money). Sure, that’s expensive (on top of having to purchase the doner), but from Lynx’s side it’s hard to imagine a company staying in business making just 3 of those per year for 20 years. I guess their other work was plentiful and lucrative?
That is a real beauty – I like the coupe but I think I like this Shooting Brake model more. Looks like a real quality conversion too.
Amazing what shows up along Gaien Blvd.
I wonder if rear-seat room is up from the standard XJ-S. Looks like it may at least have more headroom. I’m guessing the seatback folding mechanism was copped from another existing car. Anyway, this looks better than the way Jaguar delivered them, although the shooting-brake proportions make this car look really long, with a longer hood and longer rear overhang than I remembered. Nonetheless, this is one of the few shooting-break conversions that look like it could have been born this way.
Trivia: When Ford bought Jaguar, they dropped the hyphen from XJ-S to make it the XJS. I had to look this up because I didn’t know which one was right. Turns out they both are!
Thanks for the info. about the hyphen. That’s something that’s long bothered me – how there’s seemingly no consistency with whether the model name is hyphenated or not. I never realized when the changeover occurred.
The hyphen was officially dropped as of the 1991 facelift under Ford ownership.
I was never really a fan of the XJ-S. Not saying it’s ugly and it did have an impossible act to follow, but still the flying buttresses left me cold.
But this thing, the Eventer, or shooting brake, or wagon or ??? I like! I really like it. Only thing I’m not sure about is the rear side windows, what, 5+ feet long? But overall it’s a nice shape.
The Eventer did make brilliant sense of the XJS’ styling – a real silk purse.
The original car wasn’t designed by a committee that never met – it was the work of Jaguar’s aerodynamics specialist. I never liked that rear end – or might have on a different car.
As usual, it was really clumsy detailing that ruined it – why the later cars look a lot better with few BIW changes.
That XJ40 looks like it’s an attempt to parody Jagwar’s Klumsy Krome…
I’ll just come in that to me, it looks much nicer than the XJS coupe. And speaking of Jaguar wagons, I saw a XJF Sportbrake last week. I’m pretty sure it’s the first one I’ve seen.
Fab find! I love the regular XJS, but the Eventer just looks so right! My late Uncle had an XJS coupe and it was like a cave in the back seat, but the Eventer solves that and then some.
Lynx is still in existence – https://lynx.uk.com/ – and although not making Eventers currently, they’ve got rather a nice render of a proposed updated Eventer.