By Chris Capes, 23rd January 2018

Developing our Jaguar Programme

With Moss Europe now offering Jaguar parts, we hear from Chris Capes, Jaguar Programme Manager, about his background and his plans to develop our Jaguar offering.

I first got involved with Jaguar and Land Rover parts almost ten years ago. I had been undertaking an apprenticeship at Ferrari and Maserati dealership, Maranello’s, whilst studying Motorsport Engineering at Kingston University. Once qualified, I began looking for an opportunity to begin carving out a career.

I began working at an authorised JLR vehicle exporter as a Parts Coordinator, managing the supply of various parts and accessories required by our network. During this period, I was fortunate enough to spend a fair amount of time around the Jaguar models of the day and had the chance to drive many of them. I had previously viewed Jaguar as a manufacturer that offers comfort and luxury, I began to appreciate the wide scope of the marque, after an experience behind the wheel of an XKR, my interest in Jaguar was here to stay.

At the start of 2017, the opportunity to work for Moss Europe as Jaguar Programme Manager came about. Having owned several classics, including Minis and various MGs, I had been a happy Moss customer for many years, this along with my experience with Jaguar made the role very attractive to me and I was delighted to accept the job.

Naturally I was very keen to get the ball rolling and start shaping the range. We began by splitting the Jaguar models into three categories to help us visualise the development plan, these are Modern, Retro & Classic Jaguar.

Modern Jaguar

The ‘Modern’ Jaguar Programme is quite straight forward, being made up of post 2000 models. This is where we have started, focusing initially on service and repair items such as suspension bushes, Bilstein shocks, filter kits, engine sensors even down to little things like washer bottle caps. We are including items for models currently in production such as brakes and service items in preparation for these cars dropping out of warranty. The super fun and exciting performance and styling parts will follow. We will soon be adding performance exhaust systems and in fact, we already stock K&N air filters and Goodridge brake hoses.

We will continue to grow our offering of both upkeep items and performance parts for the Modern Jaguars, ensuring that the renowned Moss service is available to enthusiasts of these later models.

Retro Jaguar

With a strong interest in cars from the 70s, 80s and 90s such as the XJS, XJ40 and X300 growing amongst enthusiasts, the opportunity to help keep these ‘Retro’ models alive and well shouldn’t be missed. Of course, it’s not just about keeping the cars in good order, modification is very much a part of the retro scene with lowered suspension, wide wheels and performance tuning being widely embraced.

We will be developing our offering for these cars in the coming year and plan to offer some trick parts to help owners achieve that perfect stance look while ensuring that their car is running well.

Classic Jaguar

With Moss Europe being renowned for supplying British classic car parts, it makes perfect sense for us to ramp up our range for Jaguar heritage models. During the first half of 2018 we will be busy building up the Classic Jaguar Programme with an aim to launch many more lines in early summer, just in time for the XK 70th and XJ 50th anniversaries.

The truth is that Moss Europe has been supplying classic Jaguar parts for some time, it just hasn’t been an area of focus until now. This is a big benefit for me as we already have great technical knowledge and there are many strong supplier partnerships in place, going back decades!

As with the Modern and Retro ranges, it goes beyond restoration and upkeep, we will be developing our performance part offering for the Classic models too… but perhaps most importantly, as with the entire Programme, we will be bringing the service, knowledge and reliability that Moss is so well known for to the Jaguar community.

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