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His Majesty’s pleasure. The Daimler Majestic was a rare beast in its own right – an Insignia model even more so. We revisit a one-off XJ40.

The first saloon car to bear the XJR name might not have been supercharged, but that doesn’t stop it being a true sports saloon.

The Daimler 3.6 was the ultimate luxury variant of the XJ40. We tracked down a very special one with just 12,000 miles on the clock.

I make no secret at all of my love of Jaguar’s big saloon cars – especially those of the Eighties and Nineties, which I’ve owned in various guises since I was first able to scrape together the insurance premium in my mid-20s.

Both of these archetypal Eighties executives began their lives well before they went into production, one a joint venture with rivals, the other as a last stand at independence. With the Alfa Romeo 164 and Jaguar XJ40, they're both cars you buy with your heart over your head, one more so than the other.