1994 Jaguar Xjs Convertible 2-door 6.0l V12 53,391 Original Miles on 2040-cars

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Jaguar-Land Rover will use recycled waste to make parts for future models

Jaguar-Land Rover's future models will be partially made of junk. The company announced it's working on integrating a recycled material named Econyl into its manufacturing process in the coming years. Created in 2011 by Italy-based Aquafil, Econyl is a fiber made with a blend of recycled industrial plastics, fabric offcuts sourced from clothing manufacturers, and discarded fishing nets aimlessly floating around the ocean. It's more eco-friendly to produce than oil-based fibers, according to Jaguar, and it helps clean up the planet. Jaguar and Land Rover will use Econyl to make floor mats in the not-too-distant future. Neither company listed the models they'll put the material in, but it's reasonable to assume recycled floor mats will be available in the next-generation XJ, which will be electric, and the next-generation Range Rover. Both will be released in 2021. Eco-friendly materials are slowly but surely spreading across the luxury car segment. Jaguar already offers the I-Pace with a Kvadrat upholstery that combines regular wool and up to 53 recycled plastic bottles per car. Audi's fourth-generation A3 is optionally available with an upholstery made largely using recycled plastic bottles, and Volvo estimates at least 25% of the plastics in its cars will be recycled starting in 2025. Environmentalist organizations are putting an increasing amount of pressure on carmakers to deliver so-called vegan interiors. A group called EarthSight recently accused several companies (including Jaguar-Land Rover and BMW) of using leather from cattle raised on illegally logged lands in Paraguay. Representatives for the British company stressed they found no evidence to verify EarthSight's claims. Related Video:

Junkyard Gem: 1994 Jaguar XJ12

While Americans were able to buy new Jaguar two-doors with V12 engines under their bonnets from 1971 all the way through 1996, availability of new Jaguar 12-cylinder sedans was much spottier here. The Series 1 and Series 2 XJ12s were sold here from the 1973 through 1979 model years, and then there was a grim Jaguar V12 four-door drought here all the way until the 1994 model year. Here's one of those very rare felines, found in a Northern California boneyard in April. Jaguar had developed the XJ40 successor to the Series 3 XJ over an agonizingly protracted period that spanned the British Leyland era of the early 1970s through the first production cars being shown to the world in 1986. The XJ40 first appeared in the United States as a 1988 model. The following year, the Ford Motor Company bought Jaguar. The engineers in Coventry struggled to design a viable V12-engined XJ40 for years, giving it the XJ81 designation. At long last, the XJ81 was revealed to the motoring world in 1993… just prior to the replacement of the XJ40 by the XJ300 for the 1995 model year. All of the XJ81s sold in the United States—just over 1,500 of them in all—were 1994 models. This junkyard provided a bonanza of rare European iron when I stopped by on that chilly spring morning. Located within a few rows of this one-year-only XJ81 were a Volkswagen Phaeton and a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. The yard also had a running Peugeot 504 for sale in their "builders" section, and I'll admit I was very tempted by it. The April 1994 production date indicates that this is one of the very last members of the XJ40/XJ81 family to be built (though Jaguar continued to use platforms derived from the XJ40 until the X350a arrived as 2003 models). This 6.0-liter engine was an excruciatingly tight fit in this engine compartment (there are semi-credible tales that the XJ40's engine compartment was made so narrow as a sneaky office-politics means of preventing British Leyland from installing Rover V8s in Jaguars), and working on it must be a mechanic's nightmare. Output was 301 horsepower and 336 pound-feet. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz's V12 was rated at 389 horsepower and 420 pound-feet, while BMW's V12 had 296 horsepower and 332 pound-feet. The MSRP for this car was $73,200 for the dual-airbag version (and we can see that both airbags were deployed in this car's career-ending crash). That amounts to $151,889 in 2023 dollars.

Junkyard Gem: 1984 Jaguar XJ6

The original Jaguar XJ first appeared in American showrooms for the 1969 model year, after an excruciatingly long development process that included a final-innings merger of Jaguar's parent company with a manufacturer of heavy-duty vehicles. And then Jaguar used that same basic platform for various iterations of the XJ until the last V12-engined cars hit the showrooms for 1992. Six-cylinder XJs switched to the new XJ40 platform for 1988, however, which makes today's Junkyard Gem one of the later Series 3 XJ6s to hit our roads. This one was in very nice condition when it arrived in this Denver self-service yard recently, so be prepared for pain if you're an XJ lover (no, not the other kind of XJ). Just over 100,000 miles on the odometer, which is just over 2,700 miles traveled for each year of this luxurious saloon's life on the road. Other than some damage that I'm nearly certain was caused by junkyard shoppers, the interior is just about perfect. Most of the upholstery looks new, the door panels are pristine, and the wood trim isn't cracked. The only obvious flaws are some cracks in the dash pad and a bit of fraying on some leather here and there. Of course, the sun's glare is a little harsher in the Western United States than it is in Coventry, so you must expect some interior damage. It lived in Texas for a while during the early 2000s. There's a University of Wisconsin sticker on the rear window, so this car may have done a few cross-country moves during its life. How much did it cost new? The MSRP was $31,100 for the 1984 XJ6, which comes to about $90,435 in 2022 dollars. I was driving a 1968 Mercury Cyclone that cost $200 in 1984 dollars when this Jag was new, and a new XJ6 seemed about as far out of reach to me as an intergalactic starship (though beater early-1970s XJ6s were well within my price range— if not my wrenching skill-set— at the time). Anyone who has heard "Dead Man's Curve" knows that you just don't mess with the curves on Sunset Boulevard or with a Jaguar straight-six (the XJ was in the early stages of development when the song came out, so the narrator of the classic teen-tragedy song wrecks his Sting Ray while racing an XKE). This one displaces 4.2 liters and made 176 horsepower when new. The V12-powered XJ-S coupe had 262 horses, but cost $34,700 ($100,900 today).