Junkyard Find: 1987 Jaguar XJ-S
Wait, straight, unrusted XJ-Ss get crushed? Yes, indeed, I see solid examples of Jaguar’s V12 statusmobile at self-service junkyards all the time. This car listed at $39,700 when new ( nearly 80 grand in 2012 dollars), but couldn’t even fetch above scrap value at an auction today.
That’s why we see quite a few XJ-Ss in LeMons racing, and why we always believe the car was built under the required $500 budget.
The idea of getting a cheap XJ-S runner and driving in V12 luxury for a while always has great appeal, but dealing with any mechanical problem tends to be expensive, time-consuming, or both.
So, it’s 1987. You can get a base 911 coupe for $38,500, a Corvette coupe for $27,999, or an XJ-S for $39,700. Without knowing that the Porsche and Chevy would hold on to a double-digit percentage of their initial value while the Jaguar would be worth 1% as much in 25 years, would you still have bought the Jag? Hell, even buying one XJ-S worth of new ’87 Chevettes (i.e., seven Chevettes), you’d have held on to more of your investment today (scrap value of a Chevette is about $250 nowadays).
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I know they are POS (I have had several Jags from the 70's and 80's) but man do I want one. That kitty clearly didn't lead a good life -- here is one (in the same colour!) that must have died in a garage! http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/WE-FINANCE-1987-Jaguar-XJS-Convertible-38K-PwrTop-V12-CLEAN-CARFAX-PowerWindows-/270951146670?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item3f15f264ae#ht_16331wt_1010
My father bought one of these brand new in about 1995 or 1996 and his biggest regret is selling it. It never had a problem of any kind, returned mpg in the 20s (it was the 4.0 straight six) and it was comfortable and nice to drive. As well as (in my opinion, at least) beautiful.