Photo of the day: the Jaguar XJ is fifty

The Jaguar XJ is 50. Consistently one of the best-looking luxury saloons on sale – the best at the moment, if you ask us – it can line up alongside the Mini, the Range Rover and Porsche 911 as one of motoring’s grandest icons.

Here, from svelte XJC coupe to boxier XJ40, is every generation, gathered presumably before the balloons and cake arrived. Sat front and centre is the latest XJ, with an XJ50 special edition marking the occasion.

While we’d dearly love it to be an XJR with all of SVO’s madness thrown at it, it’s a somewhat more resale-friendly 300bhp diesel available in red, white or blue (and, um, black) with some fancy wheels and illuminated ‘XJ50’ tread plates.

Still, there’s always the really quite bonkers XJR 575 to sate our needs for an overpowered saloon car with enviable history. Happy birthday, XJ.