This car has returned from Japan to the UK.

This tells us two things.

Firstly, that it has spent its life immersed in a culture where people tend to take pride in their cars and usually spend a great deal of time and effort pampering them and making sure no harm comes to them.

Secondly, that it comes from a country where salt is thrown over the shoulders of sumo wrestlers, not chucked all over the roads in industrial quantities like it is in the UK.

Actually, there’s a third thing we know for sure about cars that come our way via this particular vendor.

He is very well-known to us and has built a successful niche business on the back of his expert understanding of the Japanese Jaguar market and his ability to select and import only the very best examples.

Well, he’s certainly brought us an extremely rare and special example with this stunning car.

As a marque aficionado with a particular penchant for XJ variants, you will know that there are Jaguar XJRs and there are Jaguar Sove...