Just down the street a couple of blocks is this nice-looking XJ6–and it’s for sale. Even has the genuine wire wheels…and…for sale? Hmmm….
“Starts – Runs”. And then, “Great 4 Parts”. Well, that doesn’t sound so great, especially for $1,600.
Not a bad looking body, though. Is that just about the nicest-ever ass end on a sedan? Could I just buy that part?
My wife stands to inherit a pristine ’83 from an elderly family member in Florida, the thought of which makes my skin crawl for any number of reasons…
No such thing as a cheap Jag,it will very soon be an expensive one.Not so sure if those wires and thin whitewalls go with this car though.I’ve often been tempted to buy one but I don’t think I’m a good enough mechanic to keep one running well.I often pestered Dad to buy one in the 60s & 70s but he always said a Jag engine was a racing engine not a road car engine.
+1 Gem, what ever you pay for these, it is just a deposit! A family friend had a lovely powder blue Series II in the late 1980s, and she figured it cost her $50 every time she started it.
LOL Glen,that’s a good way to look at it.I know a Jag expert who’sdaily driver is a BMW!
I was told the orig wire wheels do need the wheel to be taken off to grease periodically.
Or else if the spline got invaded by the wales tin worm then it will take a miracle by praying from St George to St Patrick to un-couple them.
Notice that the sign says “starts ” and “runs”. Notice, also, that it doesn’t say “moves”. ‘Nuff said.
Beautiful car. But obviously not very valuable. I think an Atlas I6 and trans transplant is in order. But only for the very ambitious skilled wrencher. A degree in electrical engineering might be helpful too. To show how little I know about this car, is it traditional engine trans setup or is it a transaxle? If the latter forget it . Or you could stuff a corvette unit in it. All it takes is time and money, plus a lot of patience.
Nope, this is traditional, front engined, rear wheel drive, and it’s STILL a trouble proned vehicle to own.
That said, get the Lucas (if it uses them) electrics sorted out, it may not be half bad in reliability, though by no means anything remotely as good as say, a Honda or Toyota.
It already has a “Corvette unit” out back as these used a Dana 44 differential which was also used by the Corvette in a couple of years, as well as Studebakers, Internationals, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Isuzu, and Nissan.
Many, many of these cars have Chevrolet Small Blocks swapped in them, since overheating the straight six more than 0.0001 degree for 0.0001 seconds will cause the open deck engine to do all kinds of simultaneous twisty, bendy (and often cracky) things. The SBC is lighter, more powerful, smoother and uses less fuel. I once drove one with a nicely done 350 in it, probably about 250 hp. Very nice car without the Jag engine. The straight six is a service monstrosity.
Saw one on Friday with a V8 of some sort – quite a loud exhaust.
I live in a town where a lot of Jags were sold in the early 90s. I recall there was a mechanic’s shop in town that did a steady business in replacing Jag engines with small block Chevy motors. In some cases the owners would bring them in brand new from the dealer.
Oh I meant the transaxle in the later corvettes. With the Dana 44 the rear end should not be the problem. So go with a reliable engine and trans and you are good to go.
I actually saw a Series III XJ just like this on the highway this morning! It was a Vanden Plas in the period Split Pea Green.
Speaking of that ass, while driving behind it, it looked about a foot and a half lower than the decklid on the late-model Honda Accord coupe driving next to it.
See the X on the fender?
PLAUGE!!!!
Run away!!!
That X makes me think it may have been rescued from the junkyard. Clearly the owner had no idea what he was in for…
Was this new enough for C4C?
I don’t think it would have been considered too new. I recall seeing pics of late ’90s XJ sedans that were turned in for C4C.
I walked the C4C turn-in lot at the local mega-dealer back in ’09 and the saddest one was an ’82-’84 Coupe de Ville in my favorite triple light yellow color combo. Granted, it was a bit rough, but it was all there-and not customized.
Needs a chevy tree fiddy swap.
My old mechanic was a former Jaguar mechanic. He threatened not to work on my cars if I bought one. ‘Nuff said.
Jaguars That Run and John’s Cars both make bolt-in swap kits for a Chevy 350 / Jag conversion. Both companies have been around for longer than I remember. On YouTube there’s numerous videos of guys driving and even drag racing their Jagrolets.
I’ve seen them powered by everything from carbureted, tuned port injection, late model LT1s, and I think I even saw a nasty big-block XJ12 on there once.
As far as electrical woes, a universal harness kit from Painless should fit the bill nicely.
That’s right, drop in a V8, or stick a fork in it. Maybe when Ford bought Jag, they should have just dropped the 4.6/EODE in the XJ and you would have had the best of both worlds. Great body and sumptuous interior with manageable mechanicals.
Uh, Jaguar got past the “own two to have one running” point sometime between the times that: a. They replaced the Lucas electrics with Bosch, and, b. Ford took them over. They’re no worse to own nowadays than a like year BMW/Mercedes/Audi/overblown German lease-and-show-off machine.
Except on the Internet, of course. Where those who are determined that Jaguars are the inner circle of hell will never admit to anything else.
maybe… ask the Type S owner of this millenuim
As a lifelong fan of the marque, I sincerely hope you’re right about nightmarish reliability being mostly a thing of the past. And from what I’ve heard, you are. I’ve never quite been ready to take the plunge with a Coventry Cat, but it’s on my bucket list. Closest I’ve come is buying on Ebay a hood ornament from this vintage — when the leaping feline was still 7″ long, before being shrunk to around 5″ in the ’90s — mounted on a clear acrylic base, which I use as a paperweight.
Unfortunately for me, the type of Jags I’d gravitate toward wouldn’t be the modern, reliable one, but rather something along the lines of this here “Starts, Runs, Great4Parts, $1600 OBO” kind of deal. Which is, of course, just asking for trouble. And the fact that there’s a company called “Jaguars That Run” is kind of scary just by itself.
I love minimal descriptions such as “runs”.
If other things were advertised this way, Mobil would run ads for its gas that just said “Burns!”
I’m surprised it doesn’t say “Ran when parked.”
You guys are all misreading it. It clearly says there are only 4 great parts on the car. Which 4 parts would those be? The wheels?.
+1
I don’t know, I really like the series III and six cylinder engines. There is a good knowledgebase on these cars too.
If the interior is intact I think this is a good hobby car candidate.
Aren’t the leaper and some other parts worth $1600? Chop off the trunk and mount it on the den wall? Really like the ice blue color (at least it comes across that way on my screen). Perfect for a Ross Hunter film.
Grab the leaper, the Connolly Leather seats and the woodwork . . . and send the rest to China (crushed) . . .
Certainly looks much better than a parts car. Unless the seller knows something that isn’t readily apparent in which case $1600 seems a lot for a parts car.
I’ll be that one. The girlfriend and I were out on the Harley this afternoon (like every other pleasant Sunday) and ran across a fairly nice, running, 1953 Jaguar Mark VII saloon. DOHC six with the Borg-Warner automatic. I’ll dig the pictures out of the girlfriends camera sometime in the next couple of days.
Asking price was $19,500.00 firm. Daily driver, 40+ year old restoration, as far as I was concerned would need another $5-10,000.00 to put it in the kind of shape I’d want it to be in. Will pass, even though I’ve got an incredible soft spot for the Mark saloons. Even more so than the XK-whatever’s.
Don’t get me wrong . . . I love Jags and had an ’05 S type . . . I love the Marks. It seems that Jags didn’t really get to be somewhat reliable until after the Ford infusion. They are no better/worse than its contemporaries nowadays, but what kills them still is the resale value. In the first few years, their worth nosedives.
Quite expensive if its not a driver these cars are usually cheaper than that if they have problems, SBC is the cureall. Jag engines are expensive to rebuild much more than the cars are worth.
I always believe these are underrated while German quality is often overrated.
Yes, these need a lot more of TLC then a Merc or a BMW, but usually parts are cheaper then ze Germans are and the Jag community is rather big on tips and tricks.
Main problem on these is the wiring and the connectors.
Many a faulty connector makes these cars fail.
And these have too few relais installed, so switches for power roof and power windows simply burn.
A friend of mine hwo was an electrics, electronics and computer wizard had one, bought cheaply with an incurable electric problem, he did my electric problems, I was his grease monkey.
He drove the thing for six years with really minor problems after he’d modified the wiring loom to his specs.
To me, this is the last of the real Jaaaaags. And will be in the Mk II league in the future coz we crush’m all now.
Ah, the Jaguar XJ6. Such a gorgeous body. Such a velvety ride. Such crisp handling. Some things Jaguar got right.
Others, they didn’t. The electricals, for one. Finally, Jaguar effectively fired Lucas as a supplier. It was about time.
Everybody seems to have a story about someone else’s XJ6. I know a guy who had one and never learned that it had two fuel tanks. He only put gasoline into one of them. The other one, ignored and only partly filled over a period of many years, finally rusted out. One day it started to leak whatever gasoline was left in it, and a fire started, fortunately extinguished before any real damage.
My late uncle who was big on prestige cars gave up on Chryslers after the 1957 Forward Look 300C and went to Jaguars. He had a Mk II 3.8 saloon and when the XJ6 was introduced, couldn’t resist. For a passenger, it was a comfortable, luxurious experience…not in the Brougham style so often derided here, but in a real, Old World Money kind of way, the kind that didn’t have to shout. But early on, there were problems. The folks at British Motors in San Francisco would fix numerous electrical glitches (more new Lucas to replace old broken-down Lucas) but they kept lying to him about the air conditioning. In San Francisco you might not notice but he had a weekend home in Sonoma County and in summer, got to taking their Ford Country Sedan wagon instead of the Jag because it was cool inside. British Motors kept saying, “nothing wrong, nothing wrong…it’s blowing cool.” Yeh, when it’s foggy in San Francisco and under 60°F out, OF COURSE it will blow cool.
Finally he got fed up with the Jaguar and with British Motors and tried other cars. In 1995 he went back to Chrysler when he test drove a Concorde LXi, buying one on the spot because it outhandled the Jag and rode better (and the air conditioning was powerful…he still drives that car daily, today). All the while the XJ6 just sat, never venturing out of cool San Francisco. His brother finally asked if he could have it and a deal was worked out. Amazingly after all that time the electricals still were behaving so the first order of business was to replace the Jaguar Six and the always-balky Borg-Warner automatic with a small-block Chevrolet V8 and a Turbo Hydramatic 350, using a kit from John’s Cars in Texas (I have nothing to do with them but it’s a great kit, by the way). It was when the Jaguar engine was lifted out that the true cause of the air conditioning failure was discovered…and British Motors had indeed lied about it all the while. The compressor had a hole in the side and the system was unable to hold any refrigerant. The air conditioning really never had worked! The Jag with its new drivetrain and a General Motors air conditioning compressor is still running today in Southern California, a reliable almost-daily driver to a part-time job.
One reason why British Motor Cars Dist. Ltd of San Francisco ceases to exist. Caveat: I think the Jags, Rolls and Bentleys are part of the Ellis Brooks Group.
See Ellis Brooks today
for your Chevrolet . . .
The corner of Bush and Van Ness . . .
Mom’s car after her 1979 Riviera was totaled in 1985 was a 1983 XJ-6 in Cobalt Blue – the same color as the featured car. That car was a nightmare, to say the least. It looked and drove incredibly – we got compliments on it all the time. But it was an electrical disaster. There was always a looming gas smell in the summertime – the local Jaguar dealer could never find a leak, however. The A/C never really worked properly, sometimes shutting off and then coming back on when it felt like it. We were in a funeral procession once and the battery moved and somehow the terminals hit the firewall. My grandmother was sitting in the back seat and said she smelled smoke – sure enough the Jag was on fire! Luckily we were able to pull over and I opened up the “bonnet”. Someone happened to have a fire extinguisher and we were able to save the Jag. (Only to Dad’s dismay!!) Every time it went in for service the bill was usually around $2,000! Mom kept driving it until it had about 70,000 miles on it and then parked it in the garage for a few more years. After Dad passed away she drove his 1990 Coupe deVille until 1998 for her daily driver as it was FAR more reliable than the Jaguar. We eventually sold the Jag, feeling bad for the poor soul that ended up with that car!