Hi all
my 1999 XJ8 Sovereign has no bonnet ornament. From what I can find on line is that they were deleted in 2005. Mine vehicle was supplied new to our government house, for the Governor General’s official use I believe. I wondered if it was specified not to have one because of this.
Any ideas or specific knowledge out there?
Cheers

This could be my vehicle as this photo taken in 2000.

My ride🚴‍♂️

 

The top photo is an X350 car vs your X308. I know that doesn’t answer your question about the leaper but, I think it looks great without the leaper in black.

 

It is true that it looks good without the leaper in black, however the leaping Jaguar is a
recognizable and almost mandatory element in the world of Jaguar ownership. It adds
an element of status and pride that is not negligible.

 

This is an interesting subject!

In the UK, it's rare to see any Jaguar from the 1970's onwards with a bonnet leaper. I believe Jaguar stopped fitting them in the factory in 1970 (and I believe the 420G was the last Jaguar model to be factory fitted with one). It really is a terrible shame as the leaper was a beautiful symbol, but some owners in the UK fit their own, as they are legal - you are just on thin ice if you hurt someone and it was found to be due to the leaper you had added. Occasionally UK police insist people remove them if they are aftermarket fitted, due to their interpretation that they are dangerous, but this can be argued if the leaper is fitted with low resistance fixings, or is spring loaded.

From previous discussions on the subject, I have been led to believe all Jaguars exported from the UK were also supplied without bonnet leapers, but I believe in the USA, and in Canada, dealers continued to fit them locally, as owners preferred the look. I am not sure about elsewhere, but I can only assume it may have happened in other countries.

I think the newer Jaguars look great without leapers, but if they are positioned correctly the cars can look great with them too. It would be interesting to find out when they stopped being fitted in different countries, but we might need assistance from someone who worked for Jaguar dealers in those countries.

 

I hope Ken (the owner) does not mind me sharing this picture, but I think this is an example if exactly how they should look when fitted. Simply stunning.

A lot of UK owners fit them in bad positions (often too far back), then then look awful.

 

MY US spec 2001 XJR has a leaper hood ornament...I'd post a photo, but you can't follow Ken's car's photos with photos of your own...they always look bad by comparison.

Many of the photos and videos I've seen of UK x308 Jags seem to have no hood ornament...I noticed it absent Hammond's XJR in that video for example.

I think they're standard non-fitting in the UK (and presumably other markets) and standard fitted in the North America market. Maybe its all right hand drive markets non-fitted as I've seen a few Aussie x308 videos without hood ornaments and no obvious holes or poorly concealed filler.

 

Hmmmm. Does the UK have such restrictions on Mercedes and Rolls Royce as well?

 

I think there was an EU directive or ruling for non fixed. The new Rolls Ghost has a Lalique glass Spirit of ecstasy that's lit from below, at night it's something else, but touch her and she retracts into the grill assembly.
Wiki:
....for the safety of any person being accidentally hit, is mounted on a spring-loaded mechanism designed to retract instantly into the radiator shell if struck from any direction. There is a button within the vehicle which can raise/lower the emblem when pressed. She can be made from highly polished stainless steel, stainless with 24-carat gold plating, or from illuminated frosted crystal – the latter two being optional extras.

 

Interesting. I wonder if there is any actuarial data that supports such a sweeping decision.

 

Presumably...but I don't know.

Pedestrian safety was indeed a concern for the NHSTA back in the day. Actuarial data or not, it doesn't take much imagination to envision the type of injury that a hood ornament could cause.

I know that spring-loaded hood ornaments were the norm on American cars in the mid/late 70s. I recall reading that the NHSTA wanted an outright ban on hood ornaments but accepted the spring-loaded type as a compromise. Something like that.

Cheers
DD

 

That's my understanding. On the X300s, at least, the leaper was installed on all USA market cars. Technically it was "optional" and it would appear on the window sticker as such.... but Jaguar USA ordered it on all cars

Cheers
DD

 

The bonnet/hood leaper was a factory-installed item on Canadian market X300, X308 and X350 (as well as on the X-Type and S-Type), not dealer accessories. These leapers were of the non-rigid kind that can be horizontally displaced from the base.

The Series I, II and III XJ cars came without the leaper from the factory but 95% or more of the cars had the dealer-fitted leaper.

 

I should take one of my spare leapers and sharpen it to be a bonnet bayonet.
🤔

 

Or....you could weld a K-Bar. Truly distinctive and unique.

 

Here's what the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (think MVC) tell us. Not terribly helpful but the bottom line is that it's quite subjective and if your leaper is likely to hurt a pedestrian then you could be asked to remove it or be sued in the event of a collision. The difference with the modern Rolls-Royce and Bentley mascots is that they retract into the grill on impact - that's really hard to achieve with a leaper on a low-slung Jag bonnet/hood, but spring loading which pushes it out of the way should avoid most injuries.

Personally, I hate the leaper that came with with my XJ8 - it's nothing like the elegant mascot on Ken's car. It looks as though it was taken off a wooden plinth and attached to the bonnet and when I take it off, it will be going straight back onto a plinth. It would eviscarate any small child who had the misfortune to hit by me and my friendly traffic cop tells me that if I were in his "manor" that he'd stop me and tell me to get it removed. To add insult to injury, if I do remove it, the damage it leaves behind is a very expensive repair. I've just managed to find a used bonnet in the right colour so will be swapping it out in the coming weeks. I won't be putting a leaper on the replacement but may stick an bonnet badge on.

Here's the text from the UK government:

Regulation 53 of The Road Vehicles (Construction & Use) Regulations 1986 (SI 1986 No. 1078 does not provide for a complete prohibition on the fitting of mascots, etc, as it does provide for a derogation “… unless the mascot is not liable to cause injury to such person by reason of any projection thereon”.

Information concerning the requirements that new vehicles have to comply with can be found in European Directive 74/483/EEC, which has requirements concerning ‘ornaments’, which might help you to make a decision regarding whether a vehicle fitted with a particular mascot would be compliant with the regulations.

Further, whilst the presence of a mascot will not generally lead to an MOT failure this still does not mean that any such vehicle is in compliance with the regulations - as not all items are tested and we understand mascots are a non-testable item.

Confused? You will be!





Note the horrible solid base and the depression in the bonnet/hood where it's fixed...

 

What in the name of all that is holy...? That is awful...and no way that could have come like that...I hope you were able to negoticate the price of the car down based solely on needing to replace the hood because some fool did that to an otherwise lovely car.

 

Well, it was a Wheeler Dealers car and when I told Mike Brewer that it was bloody awful and needed to come off the car, he got quite upset and told me I didn't know what I was talking about!

But, yes, it was a cheap car - nowhere near the price I appear to have paid for it when it was televised. Hard to know whether the reduction was down to the offensive leaper, the long list of electrical problems (all down to a short circuit in the driver sunvisor wiring), or the shot suspension but I got a good reduction.

Getting rid of the leaper is the last bit of remediation I need to do - once that's gone, I'll have a car that I'm not embarrassed to take to a Jag gathering....

 

"Note the horrible solid base and the depression in the bonnet/hood where it's fixed..."

Yes, that is certainly not the best installation I have seen, however it looks as though the intent
was to place it far enough back where it would not cause damage upon a human, no matter how
minimal the chance of that might be. It could be that there are FAR more pedestrians in the British
Isles than here in the Americas.





.
.-*/

Yes, that ..

 

Having just come back from two years living and working in the US and I can confirm that, outside of NYC, that's definitely true. I have fond memories of being in Scranton (yes, I know) and being accosted by a group of youths in a pick-up calling me a loser because I was walking from my hotel to a restaurant!

There's also the case that over here many of the pedestrians seem to forget there are cars on the road and they are big scary things to step in front of

 

I am certainly glad no regulations regarding the leaping cat have come to the attention of
well meaning do-gooders here in the US. I do notice however, that there are very few hood
ornaments coming of the assembly lines today.