Hi everyone! After many hours of reading, now it’s time to introduce myself and the result of a search that as been during over 15 years. It was about 2002 when near my parent’s house a guy from Switzerland abandoned on the street a british racing green XJ6 series III, one of my childhood favourite models.
Despite my efforts to save it and the lack of money you have when you are at the univesity, the car was left to rot by the owner. Indeed, the decision was made so I travelled from the bottom to the top of Italy in order to find a good XJ6 (at the time the money lacked but not the spare time): because of the poor value of the model, I didn’t find a decent one (and a coule of times I went so close…) so in 2004 I got a good Porsche 924, another low value 80’s icon (more or less).
After getting a degree I immediately started to work, so in 2008 I decided to get the real deal and I bought a Porsche 911 Carrera Coupé, my favourite sports car from I was 4. This was a clever decision, nowadays the price of classic 911s have risen so much!
Finally, another 10 years passed and I felt the original love was calling: I started again to search an XJ6 with the experience in mindo of owning two classic card, particularly one with low value where any restoration cost can easily top the overall car value. The goal was to find the best unrestored car, possibly series III, preferably an automatic 4.2, possibly not white (the most common colour in Italy): luckily in a couple of months and some inspections I found a beautiful XJ6 4.2 Sovereign automatic, Cobalt Blue with standard biscuit leather interiors, only 90.000 km from new with service book, original plates and full history known. The choice was done, it wasn’t cheap but to be honest it was poorly advertised and the seller could have been asking a little more than I paid
So this is my 01/1987 XJ6, a dream 15 years long; it’s a fully equipped model, I suspect that - considering the production stopped on 10/86 - it was a prompt delivery model, one of the last built.
The car looks really good, the interors (except for some wood in the middle console that has little cracks) are like new (under the pedals there is still the original plastic covers over the moquette). It was originally bought by a woman that owned several shops in sardinia and was driven by a chaffeur. The exterior body and the chrome are in very good conditions, the only defective part is the acrylic paint that have started to crack after 31 years: it’s not shiny as the rest of the car but it’s original and gives an overall patina that is not so bad.
Now, after a stop at the mechanic for the last 5 months I finally got back the car: the bill is quite heavy, but the car has received a major treatment (steering rack rebuilt, new stainless exaust, motor overhaul with the elimination of the majority of leaks, AC gas conversion, etc) and I hope it will swallow some miles without batting a lamp, it’s a car bought for relax and pleasure so when I use it I don’t want to think if it will take me back at home. In fact there is still some problems to the AC system, I will open a specific thread in order to understand more before taking it back to the mechanic.
That’s all! Thanks everyone that has been so patient to read this, and remember: no one comes out alive from 80s.