Finally, after 15 years and some divagations... my XJ6

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 :grinning:

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.

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Congratulations !

A well sorted Series III is a fabulous car. Built like a tank and drives like velvet, the most modern of all antique automobiles.

Cheers
DD

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Production of the Series III XJ6 actually ended in April 1987. The very last car, 477824, was kept by Jaguar. The next-to-last example, 477823, went sent to Los Angeles May 01, 1987.

I’ve always wondered if the buyer of that car knew what he had.

Cheers
DD

Patrizio:

First welcome to our forum. Lots of good guys and gals at times. Much to swap and share.

Second, Congratulations on finding a really nice car.

Third. Kudos on spending the money to fix it’s ills.

  1. I like the word you coined in the title of your thread!!! I enjoy word play and the coining of phrases…

Mine is in need of a replacement brake light bulb… I’ll get to it in a day or so… Pozi drive screws there… Phillips will do at a bit of a risk.

Bulb our warning advised me of it being dark… Slick…

Ah, yes, days at university. I remember them well. Many decades ago. Worked at a full service station on vacation and after class. Learned a lot. At class and at work. Nursed some old critters in to transporting me.
Fun included…,
Carl

Hi Doug, I didn’t know that the production continued through april 1987: all the sources, at least for Italy, indicate that they were not available for order after ottobre 1986.

Good to know, I will check the VIN number in order to understand more.

About this forum: I’ve been in a Porsche forum for 10 years, I organizer events and I was part of the certification team officially recognized boy Porsche itself. I gave up finally because people didn’t understand that it was a place to share a passion, not to flame about politics, way of living, valute of models, etc. I also abandoned both the Porsche club and the classic card club for the same reason, they were a collector of frustrations, life is so stressful by itself that gaining more stress inside a club that should be funny to be in was totally unbearable.

I promised myself to avoid clubs and automotive forums, but I decided to get on board here because after reading for many hours I felt that it’s really made of good guys, or well moderate, or both! Who knows.

Finally, just two cents:

  • coming from Porsche world, where you can enter any dealer and find about any piece of any car from 1948 onwards, not cheap but often reasonable, to the Jaguar world where I have spent two weeks just to find two flat headlamps and to discover that four door handle gaskets (value 4 € each) from the only spare parts dealer in Europe that made reproductions cost 250 € per set is quite shocking!

  • my apologies for the typos, it’s a continuous war against me and the corrector of the phone (italian).

Welcome and congratulations. You have the best of both worlds with that nice Porsche and the beautiful XJ6. A lucky man. I suppose your wife looks like Gina Lollobrigida.
th

Have fun with all of them!
Phillip

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Well, Phillip, my luck is to spare my passion for old vehicles with my wife and my son (5 y.o.), except for the fact that they both love the Porsches (and our old Vespa too) but they do not appreciate my unconditioned love for the XJ. My wife bears it, tacking every occasion to prick, my son doesn’t want to enter the car because “it stinks” and it’s “slow”.

Well, like an old whiskey it needs some time to develop the capability of appreciate. Or at least, I hope so :grinning:

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Ciao Patrizio,

finalmente qualcuno dell’Italia nel foro - l’Espagna c’è e naturalmente la Francia, ma sempre mancavano gli Italiani …

We share quite some experiences - I got to old cars during my studies when I bought a Triumph Spitfire (which is still my favourite summer toy) and I got back to an XJ much later. I picked up the car together with my boy in 2007 - then he was just aged 4 -, but neither him nor my wife ever got along with that Jaguar smell.

You did the right thing in buying the best car available and not the one with wire wheels, new leather and an upgraded engine, but simply a very well kept original car. Rest assured that problems will show up. Different from a Porsche where a used up WUR is expensive to replace, but the correct replacement part will last the next 40 years, you’ll find that Jaguar spares are relatively cheap to source - not via Jaguar (again unlike Porsche Classic), but through a plethora of well assorted parts specialist - , but sometimes crappier than the original. So never throw any original part into the bin. My practice is to purchase and install the spare, and keep and restore the original in the meantime. By the time the spare is shot - typically immediately following the lapse of the warranty period - you will be able to swap back to original.

Most importantly though: drive this machine as intended! Avoid city traffic, but give it some opportunity to show its competence. Strade statale or a decent stretch of autostrada won’t hurt. Many parts of the car will follow the logic “use it or lose it”. Every once a year I check whether or not my car - hot engine granted - still reaches 5000 RPM in third. As long as it does the engine can’t be that bad.

Enjoy your car

Jochen

75 XJ6L 4.2 auto (UK spec)

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Most (or perhaps all?) of the post-October production was intended for the USA and Canada.

The reasoning, as I understand it, was Jaguar wanted to iron-out a few details on the next generation XJ6 before releasing it to the all-important North American market. Thus the Serious III soldiered on for a few extra months.

This arrangement is not known by many Jaguar enthusiasts outside of the USA, even those who are otherwise well-informed about them. It causes a lot of confusion; some documents released by Jaguar itself contradict the reality. Parts vendors, too, often don’t acknowledge these late-build cars…so caution is required when ordering parts.

Cheers
DD

Hi Jochen, thanks! Yes, Porsche Classic is an important business so they keep the quality very high (the same cannot be said for the service, an independent specialist can work better than the Stuttgart restoration factory itself, and excluding a number of centers the focus on new vehicles).

I’m glad to read about the spares, so I kept the old heavy alternator for a good reason, nice ti hear :sweat_smile:

Maybe it’s early to say, but I feel the call of the Jag and I will try to drive her as much as possibile. I could say that because of work and family I have driven my other classics so little in the last years but the reality is that you need the right mental state to enjoy the ride and on the nowadays street to drive a 250 km/h old car is not so simple, in addition to the fact that the value is now at a point where it’s not safe to leave it on a public parking or a street, at least in Europe (more and more stolen in Italy, France, Germany…).

The XJ is a state of mind; it remembers me of over 25 years ago, during my vacations in England when I found a classic car event where gentlemen didn’t hesitate to go under the car in order to fix a detail without fearing to get dirty. Concours cars together with rotten ones but all with that old classy english style. The XJ has ben always this to me, feeling and style, just looking at it.

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Patrizio,

the alternator is a nice example: when the regulator of my alt failed last year I put in a China spare for less than 100 EUR - it still works fine. I kept the original and bought NOS Lucas regulator, brushes and a service kit, put it all into a box and on a shelf waiting for the next long winter.

I use the Jag primarily for Swiss motorway trips to the airport - very decelerating and calm -, but also for short trips around Lake Constance


to Freiburg across the black forest, St.Gallen, Switzerland

and at times I even go skiing with the car.

Six weeks ago I went to Munich, 240 km one way, in two days. The car didn’t miss a beat. On the motorway I went a long stretch in the tailwind of a Tesla S - guess that his battery was about as quickly going down as my fuel guage.

Keep the faith

Jochen

75 XJ6L 4.2 auto (UK spec)

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Don’t forget that the S111 body soldiered on into 1992 with the V12 until Jaguar produced the XJ40 with the 6.0l :slight_smile:

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That’s the spirit, Patrizio - and very welcome to the list…

Frank
xj6 85 Sov Europe (UK/NZ)
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Get in touch with our moderator (if you haven’t already) and fellow Switzerlander, @Andrew_Waugh: one of the best good guys!

Patrizio,
Welcome to the list.
As Robin correctly points out, Jaguar continued to build the Series III XJ12 and Daimler Double Six cars into the early

1990s. This was long after they ended production of the XJ6. Attached is a picture of my 1990 V12 Vanden Plas built in 9/89 for the Canadian market. This picture was taken at a car show near the waterfront in downtown San Diego, CA USA.

Paul

As Paul said, it continued until 1992, but only with the VDP V12 and only for Canada, including the famous edition of the 100 last XJV12, all with special numbered plates.
Our dear friend Dr. Gregory Andrachuk, haven’t heard from him for a while now, has one those.

Aristides

Not sure that they were specific to Canada, we have a few here in NZ r/h drive (as they should be :slight_smile: )

Just curious,
do you guys, down there, drive your stock cars on a track that turns to the right?
Phillip

I stand to be corrected, but some I recall travel anti-clockwise and turn left