1990 Jaguar Xjs Conv; Fresh Out Of A Dozen Years In Covered, Dry Storage. on 2040-cars
Year:1990Mileage:33783
Location:
Abbeville, South Carolina, United States
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The
car was soiled and dirty, but we could see that the body was straight
and original with no sign of damage or repair.
Things
really got interesting when we lifted the truck lid.
We
saw the factory boot cover, no scuffs, scrapes or rips and the
original tool bag, unsoiled and with the original tools. The spare
was a Pirelli P-600, with “369” as the date code (36th
week of 1989, the first week of September).
The
car was manufactured in Sept. 1989, so it was one of the original
tires. When we raised the truck mat, expecting to see the usual rusty
mess, we were shocked at the clean, shiny, totally rust-free metal,
just like it left the factory in Sept. 1989.
That's
what sealed the deal for us. We were looking at an original,
unmolested Jaguar convertible, an early 1990 model in best best
colors, black over tan.
The
glass date code shows it's the original British Triplex, manufactured
in July 1989. This is really an original car.
We
took the car to C.D. Ramey Automotive, well known Jaguar-Porsche
mechanic in the Greenville-Spartenburg, SC area, and told him to do
what ever it needed to get the car running again and make it road
worthy.
Five
months and $4,017.48 later, was ready.
Here's
what was done:
Replaced
heater hoses and heater control valve
Cooling
system flushed and fresh antifreeze added
New
set of tires installed
New
spark plugs, OEM ignition wires, distributor cap, rotor button and
fuel injection hoses installed
Oil
and filter changed and 12 quarts 20W-50 Castrol added
Fuel
tank full of rust and gunk; removed fuel tank and sent to specialist
for rust removal, cleaning and coating
Fuel
filter, sending unit, and various hoses, seals & clamps installed
New
ABS brake accumulator installed so anti-lock brake system functions
correctly
New
premium battery installed
We
drove the Jag on an eighty-mile shake-out cruise on a 90 degree SC
summer day and it ran fine, smooth, powerful and the engine temp
indicator stayed right in the middle where it's supposed to.
We
cleaned it up, waxed it and took some pictures. You can see the result.
This
Jaguar appears to be a totally original, unmolested car, just the
kind collectors look for. It's the last year of the original body
style before the face lift of 1991. The paint, the chrome, the top,
the wheels and the boot cover all appear to be factory original. We
think the exhaust system is also factory original because the word
“Jaguar” occurs as embossed letters. The only flaws we can find
in the body is a tiny scuff just to the right of the left taillight
and the chrome on the left rear bumper is a bit cloudy. Neither shows
up in regular pictures, but we took a close up of this area, which
shows both flaws.
As
you know, white hides a lot of sins, but black hides nothing. If you
study the pictures, you can't help but be impressed with how straight this car really is.
We
didn't clean the fuel injected 326 cubic inch (5.3 liter) SOHC 285
horsepower twelve-cylinder engine because we didn't need to. The
picture is the “As-Found” condition. The GM air conditioning
compressor is still present. That's right, it uses a GM compressor,
which makes it a lot cheaper to buy a replacement if one is ever
needed, but's not now because the air conditioning blows cold. We
measured 54 degrees at the center vent with the control knob set to
“normal,” not bad for a car of this vintage.
The
odometer reads 33,783, but it's not to be believed. Our guess is a
replacement odometer was installed because the electronic odometer
Jaguar used is know to fail.
From
service records with the car, the last documented mileage is 56,292.
Not long after that, the owner installed a set of Michelin V-Rated
tires. These Michelin tires were on the car when it was removed from
storage and they had good tread, about 95% we guessed. Based on this,
we estimate the actual miles this car has been driven as 60-65,000.
We
wished we could have kept these tires, but from sitting in one spot
for a dozen years, they had developed such serious flat spots that
simply driving down a smooth highway shook the car worse than
continuous speed bumps. A new set of tires was a necessity.
What
follows is a point-by-point summary of the condition:
BODY
& PAINT: Straight
and Original; No signs of rust of rust repair. No signs of ever being
hit or body repair; must have always been garaged. Smooth,
glistening, gleaming paint; no evidence that we can see that it was
ever repainted.
INTERIOR:
Dash
and Console
- really nice condition as shown in the images.
Dash
pad & steering wheel
– Factory Original; smooth, straight, no signs of fading, peeling,
cracking or sun damage.
Seats
and Carpet
– Jaguar original, nice condition, minor wear on driver's seat
commensurate with age and estimated mileage; no wear or stains
visible on carpet, which is English Wilton wood carpet, not your
ordinary nylon carpeting.
Rear
Compartment
– Clean, original, nice. The storage compartment behind the seats
can be locked.
Headliner
– Unlike American convertibles, the XJS has a full headliner hiding
the top bows and mechanical bits that lower the top, making it look
like a coupe when the top is up. If the headliner is crummy, expect a
big bill to replace it. In this car, it's original, unsoiled and nice
as you can see.
Top,
Boot Cover, and Glass
– All factory original and nice; glass date code is July 1989, as
shown in image 6.
Rubber
Weather Stripping
– Often overlooked at the buyer's peril because it costs a lot of
money to replace the weather seals in a Jaguar. In this car, it's all
original, soft, flexible, no cracking, no pulling loose, no peeling.
Wheels
& Tires
– The wheels are original Jaguar and look like the one below:
bright, shiny, no road rash, no big scrapes, scuffs or scratches. The
Jag has four-wheel disk brakes, but they are “inboard” rather
than the usual “outboard.” This cuts way down on the amount of
brake dust and helps keep the wheels looking good.
good.
Details
– The little detail items help make a Jaguar a Jaguar. All are
really nice on this car, as shown in the next three images. The third
of these pictures is the really neat gas filler, which we demonstrate
in the “walk around” video.
Investment
Potential – After years of toiling in the doldrums of the collector car
world, it looks like the XJS convertibles are ready to take off. As
our expert witness, we cite Keith Martin's just-released Summer-Fall
edition of the Sports
Car Market Pocket Price Guide, p.
34, in which these cars are now listed as a “four-star”
collectible which means they will appreciate at a faster rate than
the collector car market as a whole. The SCM Experts project a 15% appreciation
within one year. Compare that to what a bank pays you on your money.
Finally
to end our description, we'll just show a few pictures of the car and
let it speak for itself.
The
door is open for you. Be the high bidder and it will be you who gets
in this Jag and drives away.
If
you like what you see in these pictures, be sure to take a look at
the two embedded videos. The first one is what you would see if you
walked around the car, checking it out.
The
second one is a short test drive. It lets you hear the car start,
hear the engine running with the hood raised and hear the exhaust
note. Then we get behind the wheel and take her out for a little
spin. You will hear just how quiet and smooth this car is and how
well it runs.
WHO
WE ARE: Like Wayne Carini, we look for, buy, enjoy and sell classic
cars, cars that are unusual, cars that interest us. In other words,
we are car nuts. We've been crazy about cars for a long time, me
since I was 10 years old and my wife since we were married more than
forty years ago. I'm 71 now and my wife will soon be 70. We're both
retired, so we have the time to play around with all kinds of great
cars, cars we could have never afforded when they were new. Looking
back, if only we had kept some of the cars we used to have,
especially the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT. We bought it in 1978 for $8500,
enjoyed it for a couple of years and sold it for $8500. That car
today is worth more than our house.
Terms
& Conditions There
is no substitute for your own personal inspection of the car, and we
encourage that. But a lot of time with eBay car auctions, people live to
far away to make that practical. For that reason, we post a lot of
high resolution images of the car so bidders can get a good look at
what they're bidding on. It's not as good as looking at the car
itself, but it does give you a really good idea of what the car looks
like.
We also want you to be able to hear and see the car in action,
which is why we've posted a Walk-Around video and a test drive video.
Be sure to look at both of those at least once.
We'd
love to have you come out and see just how nice this car really is.
Keep in mind that inspections must be completed before the auction
closes, not after you win the bid.
We will be happy to cooperate with
any shipping arrangements you might make, but shipping is at your
expense. We will also store the car in our garage for a reasonable
period of time until you can make shipping arrangements.
We
reserve the right to end this listing at any time, should the vehicle
no longer be available for sale. The following terms of sale apply:
Please,
if you do not intend to pay, please do not bid. If you need
financing, please arrange it before you bid.
All
bidders with less than 5 feedback's need to email us or their bid
might be canceled.
The
successful high bidder is to submit a $500.00 NON-REFUNDABLE payment
deposit with PAYPAL within 24 hours of the close of the auction to
secure the vehicle. Buyer agrees to pay remaining balance due within
3 working days from the close of the auction. All financial
transactions must be completed before delivery of the vehicle or
transfer of title.
IF
YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS OR THINK THEM UNFAIR IN SOME WAY,
PLEASE DO NOT BID.
PAYMENT
METHODS
PayPal
for the deposit; Bank transfer or Certified Bank Check (Check must
clear before title transfer or delivery of car.
CAR
SOLD AS IS - NO WARRANTY
Please
note that this sale is binding and FINAL. This vehicle is being sold
AS-IS, WHERE-IS with NO warranty expressed, written or implied. Any
descriptions or representations are for identification purposes only
and are not to be construed as a warranty of any type. It is the
responsibility of the buyer to have thoroughly inspected the vehicle
and to have satisfied himself\herself as to the condition and value
and to bid based upon that judgment. We try to represent it as
accurately as possible to disclose any known defects associated with
this vehicle. Seller assumes no responsibility for any repairs. We do
not warranty anything that may or could happen after sale. Please
carefully read the terms & conditions of the sale before bidding.
Any inspections are to be completed before the end of sale, not
afterward. Please, NO EXCEPTIONS. Winning this auction does not
entitle you to come inspect the car and decide if you want to buy it,
but OBLIGATES you to complete the purchase! Thanks so much for your
bids, good luck.
Should
you need assistance in transport, we can refer you to a couple of
companies we have taken really good care of cars we've bought in the
past.
A
number of high resolution images are presented below showing the car
from all angles. They are well worth studying closely. A You-Tube
video is also embedded below with a walk-around inspection and a
short drive so you can hear and see the car in action. Note how
easily the engine starts and how smoothly it runs as well as how
solid the car is as it drives along the bumpy gravel driveway.
If there's something wrong about a sedan with a 550-horsepower supercharged V8, we don't want to hear about it. Instead, we want to marvel at the car in person, which is fortuitous because Jaguar has officially unveiled the 2014 XFR-S at the 2012 LA Auto Show. That blown 5.0-liter V8 dishes up a full 502 pound-feet of torque, which is good enough to shuttle the four-door to 60 mph in a scant 4.4 seconds. And, thanks to a start stop system and a few other fuel-saving tricks, the 2014 XFR-S gets away without being hit by the gas guzzler tax. That's all good news, but we're just as excited about the fact that engineers managed to crank up the vehicle's chassis stiffness by a ludicrous 30 percent. Stiffer dampers and springs also give the car a little more poise, and a wide-open exhaust lets the whole world know you're kicking down their door. You know, in case the electric blue paint and wild body work didn't tip your hand. Check out the full gallery above for a closer look.
The wheel ranks right up there with the telescope and four-slice toaster in the pantheon of inventions that have moved humankind forward. But what if a circle in three dimensions had never occurred to anyone, and we all had just moved on without it? Perhaps we'd be driving around in Lucas Motors Landspeeders with anti-gravity engines. Or maybe we'd have the same cars we do today, just without wheels. That's the thought experiment that seems to have led French photographer Renaud Marion to create his six-image series called Air Drive. The shots depict cars throughout many eras of motoring that look normal except for one thing: they have no wheels. The models used include a Jaguar XK120, Cadillac DeVille (shown above), Chevrolet El Camino and Camaro, and Mercedes-Benz SL and 300 roadsters. Perhaps one day when our future becomes our past, you'll be able to walk the street and see with your own eyes the rust and patina of age on our nation's fleet of floating cars. Until then, Monsieur Marion's photographs will have to do.
Back in 2010, Jaguar presented a show-stopper of a concept: the C-X75. Besides its curvaceous body, it boasted a wild hybrid powertrain with a gas turbine engine providing electricity. Sadly, it never reached full production, and it only reappeared as a villain car in the James Bond film Spectre. But between the concept and the film, there were a few production prototypes built as part of a planned 250, and a few stunt cars. Auction company RM Sotheby's is offering one of the latter cars. This Jaguar C-X75 stunt car is actually the first stunt car built, according to the auction house. The stunt cars were built by Williams Advanced Engineering, the same company that has been competing in Formula 1 for decades. The stunt car has little in common mechanically with the concept, or the five prototype cars Jaguar built with four-cylinder hybrid powertrains. Under the skin is a custom tubeframe chassis and long-travel rally car suspension. Powering it is a version of the Jaguar F-Type's V8 engine with a dry-sump oiling system. It's coupled to a sequential manual six-speed transmission and a rear transaxle with a mechanical limited-slip differential. Brakes are AP Racing units and are adjustable from the cabin, and they feature a hydraulic handbrake. One consequence of this stunt car's burly underpinnings is that the cockpit is more like that of a race car, with a small Momo steering wheel and toggle switches and controllers all over. But this unsophisticated cabin has played host to some famous folks. The car was used for getting shots with the actors, with a driver's seat mounted to the top. Since this was a villain car, the actor in the driver's seat was Dave Bautista. The car also was featured at the Mexico Grand Prix to promote the movie, and Felipe Massa took it for a test drive. RM Sotheby's hasn't given an estimated price for the car, but expect it to be expensive. If you have the means, it will be crossing the block at the auction company's Abu Dhabi sale on November 30. The car will come with a bill of sale, a movie call sheet and a specification sheet from Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations. We're not sure that this car would be able to be titled in the U.S., but we bet it would be just as fun, if not more so, on a race track, rather than public roads.