1994 Jaguar XJ40 Sovereign

On the 29th June 1994, the most famous woman in the world stepped out of a car in a jaw-dropping dress designed to make a punchy and unmistakably defiant statement in front of the world’s media.

The occasion was a Vanity Fair fundraising evening at the Serpentine Gallery.

The woman was Princess Diana.

The ‘Revenge Dress’ was a loud and proud rebuke to her husband, the future King Charles III, who had earlier that same day made a televised confession of marital infidelity to Jonathan Dimbleby.

And the car was the very Jaguar XJ40 Sovereign 4-litre we have at our Oxfordshire HQ today.

Don’t just take our word for it – the pictures and videos of Diana leaving the car were wired around the world to every news desk in every city on every continent. 

There’s more evidence of this car’s provenance than you could ever need.

And she didn’t use the car on just that occasion.

Far from it.

It was in regular and frequent use from when it was delivered new by Jaguar Cars themselves (not via a mere dealer) to Diana’s household as part of the royal fleet in March 1994.

Among many other filmed and photographed instances of Diana with this car, there are images of her arriving at the Royal School for the Blind in Leatherhead in January 1995, and footage of her arriving at and departing from Brown’s Hotel in January 1996.

As for the car itself, it’s in pretty good condition and has an impressively low indicated mileage of 45,000 miles.

It starts, runs and drives with all the smoothness and breeding associated with the model and the marque, and it needs little more than some cosmetic TLC here and there.

With the royal fleet as the car’s one and only former keeper, the vendor bought the car in February 1997, just six months before Diana’s tragic death in Paris. 

He has kept the car warm and dry in a heated garage ever since, adding very few miles to the odometer in the intervening years – as evidenced by the fact that the mileage in 2006 was 38,000.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the car’s use and the status of the passenger it conveyed, the car is not a LWB limousine variant.

And that means it has retained the elegant proportions and lines of all bar the last cars to appear in the XJ lineage.

The car presents well from every angle and its condition is generally much more a reflection of its low mileage than its age.

The panel gaps and shut-lines are crisp and consistent, and the chrome-work has held up very well throughout.

The wheels, which are shod in matching Pirelli P-4000 rubber, are decent save for a couple of very minor scuffs on the n/s/r wheel.

This car has picked up a number of small shallow dinks over the years, most of which are barely perceptible.

We spotted a couple of shallow indentations on both nearside doors, a few more on the bonnet, one on the o/s/f wing and another on the edge of the boot lid. 

There are some tiny spots of nascent blistering at the bases of both offside wheel-arches; a scattering of stone chips and scratches on the boot lid, bonnet and atop both front wings; various scuffs and signs of previous touch-up repairs on the driver’s door beneath the wing mirror; some splits to the paint just behind the o/s/r light cluster; and a patch of delamination at the bottom offside corner of the windscreen.

There are three filled-in holes in the roof just above the centre of the windscreen. As can be seen from various stills and videos of the car, these were where a bracket for mounting the Royal Standard was fitted.

The car’s lights, lenses, badging and other exterior fixtures and fittings all look pretty good to us.

The interior is really in very good condition and the general state of wear and tear is wholly in keeping with the car’s low mileage.

The cream leather upholstery has barely a crease to show for its years, let alone any ingrained patina, and the seats – front and back – are as comfortable and supportive as they would have been when they played host to the Princess. 

The wood veneers on the door cappings, dashboard and centre console are in exemplary condition.

All in all, the interior is a reflection of the fact that very few manufacturers deployed better French polishers and saddlers than Jaguar. 

The carpets and mats are broadly beyond reproach. The plastics on and around the dashboard and centre console have stoically resisted the temptation to fade, crack or shed their lacquer. 

In the central armrest storage cubby beneath the very much of-its-era Motorola phone, there is a discreet button marked ‘Security’ – another tell-tale sign that this car was in the service of a very precious passenger.

As is often the case with XJs of this vintage, the headlining is sagging. 

The capacious boot is as good as the rest of it.

The engine bay is clean, dry and apparently well-kept.

Everything appears to be in its right and proper place.

The same good news applies to the car’s undersides, where plenty of structural integrity is in evidence and there is nothing we’ve seen to prompt a tut or frown.

The car comes with all of its original book pack, including a service book that contains exclusively main dealer stamps up until the last entry in 2014.

The first two stamps come courtesy of R.A. Creamer of Kensington, the Jaguar dealership routinely used to maintain examples of the marque in service at Kensington Palace.

The car has been virtually unused since 2014, but has nonetheless been subjected to the scrutiny of MoT examiners on a yearly basis.

The car’s current MoT certificate is valid until 26th October 2026.

In keeping with every other MoT certificate on the car’s digital history going back to 2006, it comes with no advisories whatsoever.

The ‘Revenge Dress’ worn by Diana in 1994 was bought by a private collector in 1997, two months before her untimely death.

It is estimated that the dress would fetch comfortably in excess of £1million if brought to auction today. 

She wore it knowing that the eyes of the world’s media would be upon her like never before, thanks to Charles’ admission of infidelity broadcast just hours earlier.

And, in a blizzard of firing shutters and flashguns, the world’s media captured the scene as she emerged from this very car to create a unique and enduring imprint on history. 

We really don’t know how to put a price on the car that was at the centre of such an iconic cultural moment in time.

Viewing is strongly encouraged, and this lot is located at THE MARKET HQ in South Oxfordshire. Viewings are STRICTLY BY APPOINTMENT and we are open weekdays (apart from Bank Holidays) between 10am - 12pm or 2pm - 4pm. To make a booking, please use the ‘Enquire About This Vehicle’ button on the listing. Feel free to ask any questions, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.