This website will remain available for reference and information purposes until February 2025,

Further details about Knowles-Wilkins Engineering (KWE) Ltd status can be obtained from the liquidators:
WWW.BEACONLLP.COM, BizSpace 4300 Parkway, Solent Business Park, Whiteley, Fareham, Hants PO15 7FP Tel: 023 8065 1441 ([email protected])

To contact Chris Knowles directly, on non-KWE matters only, please email him on [email protected]. Chris is still available, in a private capacity, to help and advise on classic Jaguar matters.

If James Bond put skis on top of a Lotus, I don’t see why I can’t with a XJS

My lovely, freshly-polished and ceramic-coated 3.6 Auto was defeated by a lake on the A4 the other night. Though I was taking care, the bow wave managed to reach the air intake and flooded the engine with water.

We wrote some time ago that we did not favour the use of so-called waterless coolants, on account of price, and the temptation to try to fix a cooling problem by just changing the coolant. Here is our previous article: https://www.kwecars.com/jaguar-tech-centre/waterless-coolants-our-view/

We have recently been appointed to rebuild, and bring back to life (fully optimised), a part-restored Lister 7 litre Mk3. This unique car bears Lister Chassis Number 001. It had been in the restoration doldrums elsewhere for over a year, but KWE has taken over and will bring this friendly monster back to snarling life over the next few months. Check out progress here:

With these long, dreary nights, it’s time to upgrade your lights to brighter, better, LEDs. KWE firmly believes that brighter lights make for safer driving both for you and for other road-users who will be able to spot you from further away.

We have seen a big increase in Lister XJS work coming our way, and have become something of a specialist. These excellent XJS variants usually have the Lister 7 litre V12 which is potentially capable of over 450 bhp normally aspirated, or over 550 bhp with superchargers. They have stunning torque and yet are very drivable – but be careful on wet roads, there is no traction control!

The cruise control systems on the pre-1991/part facelift XJSs are somewhat unreliable, yet when in good order work very well. They can be identified by having a 5″ diameter rubber bellows device connected to the throttle pedestal via a rod, and sitting on the top of the engine on a bracket bolted to the back of the AC compressor.

We frequently see the underside of XJSs damaged – sometimes severely – as a result of incorrect jacking. Unlike most modern cars, the XJS sills are not designed to take the weight of a car on a jack, and special jacking points are provided which are part of strengthened areas. Most owners are aware of this and use a jack correctly. But some garages are unaware, and use the sill seams like they would on a modern car. This causes the sill the bend alarmingly, and can be expensive to repair. Our advice is to make sure that the technician working on your car is aware of the jacking points. These are, incidentally, just forward of the rear wheel, and just behind the fronts. They are identifiable by having a small steel ‘bobbin’ which should be used to engage with the normal roadside jack.