Auction Watch : The Le Mans Eventer

Keith Adams

Lynx Eventer on sale with Artcurial in France.
Lynx Eventer on sale with Artcurial in France.

It’s not often we see a Lynx Eventer – the sublime shooting brake conversion of the Jaguar XJ-S – in the wild, especially on the auction circuit. So when we caught this car, which is coming up for sale at Artcurial’s Le Mans Classic sale in July, on the auction house’s lot list, we couldn’t let it go without comment. From the late-’70s, Lynx had been in the business of turning the XJ-S into something more desirable with its well-executed Spider converstion, which was followed up for the Eventer.

The that Artcurial’s selling was was delivered new to the Belgian writer Rolland Busselun and transformed by Lynx in 1995 (a comprehensive file documenting the work will be passed on with the car): a visually improved tailgate with invisible hinges, rear seat space extended by 8cm, and more detailed finishing. The interior boasts a wealth of wood trim specific to this car, and it has striking black buffalo leather upholstery with red piping. The bodywork was completely restored in 2006.

The estimate is €50,000-70,000 and details are on the Artcurial website.

Lynx Eventer
Lynx Eventer
Keith Adams

10 Comments

  1. Always wanted one of these – anybody want to give me the money lol! Actually saw one of these at a car show a few years back and they are actually very good looking in the metal compared to a normal xj-s.

  2. Always very sceptical of these ‘conversions’ (Crayford Cortina anyone?) They never seemed to get it quite right styling-wise somehow. This however works for me in a big way, and begs the question why AR never put this into production.

  3. @2 Have you not read this site? BL/AR were run by the biggest bunch of idiots ever. Look at the Maestro/Montego – David Bache’s team design was chosen over Harris Mann, even though the longbridge designed motor was a lot better looking – it looked like the Astra Mk 2 which was launched a few years later, but the actual design looked awkward! And then there is the 400 replacement – why did they chose the ugly RDX60 design. Thank god they run out of money as that would have been another Aggro – did I forget to mention that?

  4. I have seen at least one of these in the flesh- and it is a fine looking motor- and much better than the XJS thanks to the removal of those ugly buttresses.

    Wish I had the money…

  5. I always liked the Buttresses, it gave the car character.

    The Eventer though is an elegant shooting brake, a format that is getting increasingly uncommon (was the Z3 breadvan the last shooting brake?).

  6. I think to qualify as a Shooting Brake it has to be coachbuilt.

    The Eventer qualifies because although based on a production car (albeit an upmarket one), it was a high-class conversion.

  7. It’s a pity Jaguar didn’t offer this Sooting Brake in their catalogue, it’s a good looking car, the E-Type had a “hatch”/door after all…

  8. @9

    The E-Type 2+2 was the ‘ugly duckling’ unloved variant of the E-type range.

    Somehow the XJS looks sleeker, perhaps the glasshouse is shallower than the E-type?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.