I bought my 1st S Type and in fact my first Jaguar,a 2.5 manual petrol V6 on a 03 plate earlier this year. I went for a manual over an automatic as i prefer to drive a car! And i can assure you its a pleasure to drive through the gears. Getting some pretty reasonable MPG out of it too, something that you have more control over in a manual than an auto. My only advice is take a while to trawl the market and test drive as many as you can before taking the plunge, thats what i did and are now reaping the rewards. Good luck :D