We recently ran a story about how heavy depreciation had made Jaguar’s I-Pace EV a used bargain. But there’s one pre-owned I-Pace that you won’t be able to pick up for the price of a new Korean compact, and it’s all down to the crossover’s royal connections.
Historics in the UK is auctioning a 2018 I-Pace that was formerly owned by the current King Charles when his mother the Queen was still alive and he was Prince of Wales. Charles’s passion for ecology is well known, and he runs his Aston Martin DB6 Volante on biofuel, but the I-Pace was his first EV.
The auction house says the Jag was delivered in Eiger Grey, but Charles sent it back to be repainted in his favorite Loire Blue, making it the only I-Pace of this color. The future king kept the high-spec HSE-grade EV until December 2021, by which time it had covered 3,000 miles (5,000 km), and apparently drove the car himself on occasion when he wasn’t being whisked around by his chauffeur.
Related: King Charles Needs A New Car, What Should He Buy?
Charles was filmed and photographed several times arriving at functions in the I-Pace, and on one of the occasions (seen in the video above) described the crossover as “silent but deadly” when asked about it by a bystander. At least we think he was talking about the car, and not what he’d just left in the back seat.
After the I-Pace was returned to Jag it was retailed like a regular used car via dealer Jaguar North Oxford, and sold to Karen French of nearby Bampton. French says she was only told about the car’s unusual history after she’d agreed to buy it, and went on to add a further 33,000 miles before moving it on.
She claimed that it was now “time for a change” but “time to make bank” is probably what she meant because French is almost guaranteed to receive more money for the I-Pace than she paid out for it three years ago. When new, a 2018 HSE cost £74,445 ($93,500) in the UK, and while price guides put the value of a non-royal 35,000-mile example bought at a dealer as £24,000 ($30,000), Historics thinks this one could sell for £55-70,000 ($69-88,000) when it’s auctioned in early March.
