Different markets I guess and I don't presume that they will get that price;

1991 JAGUAR XJS V12 CONVERTIBLE | eBay

That's a shade under $30k.

 

You could easily pay $20K for a good V12 in the US already. I frequently have guests around the house because of the couple of 'exotics' that I have/had, and I have been really surprised since I bought the Jag at how, although they originally visited because of another car, it is the XJS that sparks their interest and discussion ensues about how/where they can find a good one etc...it's gonna be 'huge'

 

Merry Christmas! My best present is sitting outside parked in my driveway. I'll bet your's is too. Next year is the year of the Cat!

 

I have given Rienaldo's original question some serious thought and since I work in the automotive industry I wanted to bring to light a few points about what we perceive as high hammer values at auctions.

What we tend to remember is the low production and high demand car values. For example we seldom will say " I just saw a 1965 Mustang coupe 6 cylinder automatic sell for $15K at the auction ". What stands out is the limited production all original 1965 Shelby GT350 that sold at the same auction for over $ 150K. This is what will be talked about which gives the impression that all older Mustangs are going sky high in value. We do not think about the fact that the owner of the '65 coupe had $22k in that car and just lost money to sell it.

The reality is that making money on cars is difficult. We see a restored E-type sell for $ 120K and think man they just made a killing on that car but in reality if the owner had just paid someone to do a complete restoration they may have actually lost money on the deal. I know E-type owners who have well over $ 100K invested into their cars and actually did a fair amount of work on the car themselves and bought the car years ago at a relatively low purchase price to start.

If a restored E-type can fetch $ 120K then a rough to fair example seems to be a great buy today at $ 30K. Most think after all the car is all there and somewhat runs so how much can it be to get it up to show room condition. The first shock will come from your body shop who tells you the rockers and floor are rusted out too much and will require replacement. What you thought would be a $ 20K body shop bill is now going to be $ 30 K plus just to have a solid painted shell. Now add in complete motor rebuild, transmission rebuild, rear diff. and all suspension rebuild and you can quickly add at least another $20K or more.

Ok now you are at aprox. $ 80K and you have a nice solid painted body and restored chassis. Time to start thinking about wiring, lights, chrome, glass, rubber, fuel tank and lines, interior, wheels, tires. All of a sudden you are well over a $ 100K into the car and you did the disassemble and reassemble yourself so maybe you have 300 to 500 hours into the car.

This all comes back to why the XJS is such a great value in today's market. When you can buy a low mileage great condition convertible for $ 20K or less that has excellent paint, interior etc. you are driving a classic for pennies on the dollar. Even if you find a fair example for $ 7K and spend some time and money to bring it up to good or better condition you are still able to enjoy a finely crafted car for less then an E-type owner has just in their body work alone.

We are lucky as XJS owners to be in what I call the 'sweet spot' as far as pricing goes. We are able to purchase and enjoy our cars without having so much tied up in them monetarily that we need to worry about what a few rocks chips etc. will do to the resale value of our cars.

So as Doug stated earlier about the XJS, "It's a great car for a low price. That equals a superb 'value' in my book ".

 

You’re totally correct in that making money doing this is not easy, unless you’re one of those wealthy individuals sitting in the front rows of the auction and buying cars like I buy bread and paying a bundle of money for a car (uuh, several cars) today, then selling them in a couple of years at a good profit. But then, that is not the same game as investing in restorations / mods and then selling. I see resto-mod cars with a heck of a lot of work/investment, total restorations with a top of the line, expensive engine, tranny, suspension and brakes upgrades, a fantastic paint job, etc., etc. and, even when the cars sell for, say, $100K I can’t see how in the world they can make any money on it. No different from what you described restoring an E-Type (and that was restoring only, no mods).

Even when it would appear that making a good profit doing resto-mods is not easy, the business still seems to be growing in a manner that nowadays it’s not unusual to see almost equal interest (and pricing) in a well done resto-mod car vs. its equivalent low-miles, like new and un-molested stock example. A couple of the many brands that have become popular in regards to this subject is the current interest in highly modified mid fifties Chevy’s and C-1 ‘Vettes that are really awesome and fetching some really phenomenal prices, something that not too long ago was considered a sacrilege. That E-Type restoration is an exception to the rule. What rule? Well, that there clearly is little or no interest in doing resto-mods, not only to XJS’, or Jaguars, but European cars in general. That’s something that you just don’t see much interest in, so why bother?

I’m happy with my kitty as it is and I don’t really need to change things, unless I all of a sudden find a lot of unexpected money in my pockets that I don't know what to do with…and I would suspect this to be the case with the great majority of this XJS group, but just for the heck of it, why not discuss it? It brings up the subject (restoration / modification) to our corner (the Jaguar XJS). It’d be nice to discuss what resto-mods would be involved on an XJS, keeping in mind the types of mods incorporated to those $160,000 examples crossing the block. Unfortunately, the most obvious (and heavy) XJS mod has been one that rather killed its value instead of helping it: the infamous Chevy V8 conversions, although those are not performance or even improvement cases, but rather alternate repairs to extend their lives, but most of the converted XJS that I see advertized have actually worsened the car’s value, instead. There’s at least one UK company that I know of that specializes in restoring the XJS to what it seems a pretty good standard, only that it appears a little mild (read “not aggressive enough?”) when it comes to performance in the manner that American resto-mods are featured in these auctions.

My personal “XJS resto-mod” vote would include some of what we’ve already been discussing here recently in another thread: Either a s/c AJ16 or a s/c AJV8 with a five speed stick or the 5 speed auto from the X308 XJR. In addition, I would address the perennial, weak facelift headlights with a HID xenon system. Also, new suspension and new Brembo brakes and when it applies, change the dated Lattice wheels with, either the 1995 XJS five spoke rims, or the early XK8 Revolvers chromed version rims. Many of the resto-mod cars at these auctions show that they have incorporated some pretty modern and complex ICE systems, so the resto-mod XJS must have some kind of a smart and subtle dash mod to allow a 7” TFT display (hiding up and down preferable) with a Blue-tooth head unit with USB, Micro SD and smart phone interface, DVD player, GPS, plus great speakers and a nice subwoofer.

So, then, how much difference would all this really make in terms of the XJS perception and price, either privately, at eBay, or at Barrett Jackson? Would it even be enough to just recover the investment? Is the interested parties market too narrow to generate enough demand? Worse yet, would the potential market for this ideal XJS have to go beyond Jaguar XJS enthusiasts? I ask that simply because I just don’t really see much “enthusiasm” within our ranks so, hopefully other non-Jaguar aficionados would have to help here…Would an interested party consider that, for the price that this phenomenal XJS would demand, they could actually get themselves a 5 to 10 years newer XKR? But, then again, would a Mustang enthusiast think along those lines, as well? Would he/she say “No, for that money I’d rather buy me a brand new supercharged Mustang instead of that resto-modded ’69 Mustang”. Nah, no because they're apples and oranges.

Can we hear about a few more XJS resto-mod “examples”?

Cheers,

 

[QUOTE=Forcedair1;1371268]

So, then, how much difference would all this really make in terms of the XJS perception and price, either privately, at eBay, or at Barrett Jackson? Would it even be enough to just recover the investment? Is the interested parties market too narrow to generate enough demand? Worse yet, would the potential market for this ideal XJS have to go beyond Jaguar XJS enthusiasts? I ask that simply because I just don’t really see much “enthusiasm” within our ranks so, hopefully other non-Jaguar aficionados would have to help here…Would an interested party consider that, for the price that this phenomenal XJS would demand, they could actually get themselves a 5 to 10 years newer XKR? But, then again, would a Mustang enthusiast think along those lines, as well? Would he/she say “No, for that money I’d rather buy me a brand new supercharged Mustang instead of that resto-modded ’69 Mustang”. Nah, no because they're apples and oranges.

Well. a lot of questions and thoughts to ponder here. I am confident that since the XJS market is fairly limited to begin with that just about any ' custom ' modifications for the most part will go unrewarded when it comes to higher resale values.

That is not to say that a highly modified XJS would not see a higher return but my guess is it would be 10 to 30 cents on the dollar and that would be if you can find the right buyer that wants those mods and is willing to pay something for them.

That being said I have always felt that the XJS is rare in that it's low wide stance and angular lines lends itself to looking good visually being aggressively modified. In other words I have always felt the racing versions of the XJS are some of the best looking variants. To my eye there are not that many British cars that have this ability to look good modified like the XJS does.

Reinaldo, as you alluded to there will always be cars available in every price range to compete with the XJS. If you heavily modify a XJS and hope to recover some or all of your time and money you will be competing with some very nice cars at each price point and as you said you now have many great new car models to choose from also.

I ran into a dilemma with the XJS I drive in that I considered putting a 5 speed into the car to wake it up. After looking at all my options I decided the best option was to add a 6 speed Corvette to my cars so I would have a more sporty option when I felt like that type of driving.

There are just so many attractive options at every price point now that to me it just made more sense to keep the '95 XJS convertible original and use it for what it was intended for as a heavy GT cruiser. Now had I owned a mid '80's coupe I would have seriously looked at modifying the car and done the mods that I think would enhance it.

I would think that any modifications done to a XJS should be done with the mindset that this is what I want and I am willing to proceed based on what I like with no intentions that I will see a return for my time and money.

 

Exactly!

 

One thing that explains the XJS situation in this subject is the production numbers. The abysmal difference in production numbers when compared to popular American cars makes the after market equally superior for, say, a Mustang or a Camaro of years back with their equivalently large owners and enthusiasts' following. The XJS following is but a tiny group by comparison and that is what explains what may look like a lack of interest. We are, indeed, a very small segment of the car industry and of car afficionados and that implies small potential volume for just about anything after market. My original intention here was the idea of comparing on-going interesting resto mods to what would be some clever XJS resto mods ideas from the group. An interesting theme, even if not more than just a conversation subject.

To close here I'd like to add that your last paragraph is right on the money. You do what you truly desire on your kitty that will make you a happy owner and driver. Doing any mods just to eventually sell the car for a higher price doesn't make any sense and it won't put any smile on your face.

Cheers,

 

My personal experience with the jags has been that while I love the bang for buck you can get with current US market valuations, I also find myself hesitating on putting in funds for additional upgrades or refurbishment. It's true that you'd loose money on most car projects, but with the xjs having such low valuations, that return goes to close to zero immediately, unless I plan to hang on to it forever.

Here's an example that l'd consider for apout $10k if it wasn't for the poor choice of L82, that smog throttled 350 only put out a little over 200 bhp if I recall. Also, I'd loose the spoiler
1984 XJS Jaguar sale or trade

Looks like the owner spent some coin on that modification, he'd probably have made more if he kept the V12 or put in an LSx engine that produced more power.

 

including a conversion to a manual shift transmission, no matter how many speeds. would reduce values.

i brought my XJS to an auction in Austin tx , high bid was $4500. dollars.

i went home with my tail down!

i suppose its simple , i got the car for nothing ,no cost put around 30K into it , no matter its just an old Jaguar XJS, dont be blinded.

a fool and his money are soon parted!

 

Come on, your XJS is one of the coolest examples around! You have a great car and I hope you can enjoy it. Did you start out with the idea that this was an investment or a hobby? The point about the 100k restored E type is well taken. You are right that the average owner spending close to 100k is not going to see that much profit, restoration costs are very high.

I thought the observation about the 15k Mustang coupe was very telling. It's very likely that this particular owner may have easily lost money on the deal. I have my own Mustang coupe which I bought cheaply, (after all it is a six cylinder salvage title car). I figured that I could get into the car and end up with a fun car for a low price. I paid 1,400 bucks for the car and have put a total of 5,000 dollars into it. Of course all my labor is free. And I could spend a lot more. It’s hard to accept the fact that this car isn’t anything special. It pretty underwhelming. It’s slow and get crappy gas mileage. There’s all kinds of squeaks and creaks, and water leaks. I tried to sell the car for 5,000 dollars with no takers. I figure if I upgrade the car with a V8 /auto trans combo, power front disc brakes,fix a few misc. bits and a suspension rebuild I might spend another five grand. Now I’ll have ten grand tied up in the car. The car would now be in a pretty good state, pretty much as I had envisioned. I could then square away the prior body repairs, repaint the car, recover the seats and spruce up the interior. And there goes another five grand! So now I’m up to around fifteen grand. Is it worth spending fifteen grand on a salvage coupe? At this time it’s a moot point as I don’t have that chunk of money to spend.

I would rather spend the money on my XJS. The Jag is a million times more car than the Mustang. I know we all think that the XJS is a fantastic car, it's just that we can't boast about how much these things are trading for. The average person looking at our cars thinks that an impressive car like this must be worth a fortune, why not just smile and accept the compliments?

 

Not surprised at all. Drifting away from Jaguar (i.e.Chevy running gear) will, for the most part, push XJS enthusiasts away, but I do believe that the opposite may well be true with non-Jaguar car enthusiasts, especially those who have, at some point in the past, heard bad things about the V12 Jaguar engines. I have no doubt that the average car guy who has never owned a Jag will feel comfortable buying whatever conversion (Jaguar or?) if it happens to have a later and/or well known Corvette or just Chevy running gear.

One of the few factors that can seriously boost the price of an XJS, regardless of who's buying, is very low miles; it is kind of a universal car parlance that clearly benefits the XJS price more than anything else.

Personally, I really enjoy very much each and all of the mods that I've done to my kitty (I won't list here but if curious enough see my Gallery) and I honestly never think of them as price boosters because I know that, in reality, they simply will not make a significant price difference if I was to sell the car. Of course, these mods are not complex work at all and they don't cost a bundle of money either, but they do contribute a lot to the experience. Each mod is so enjoyable, so much preferable vs. not to have them in the car, so I enjoy them now and forget about anything else, although I do know that a new owner would enjoy them as much as I do. The only exception here may be the nice paint job, which typically sells cars better.

Cheers,

 

Reinaldo,

I hope in the next year or two to get down to southern California and have a chance to check out your XJS in person. Mark ( Spikepaga ) and I are already discussing a trip to check out the Peterson Car Museum along with checking out a large Jaguar show at the same time. I have always been impressed with your tasteful mods and encourage all who have not seen them to check them out under your gallery.

 

I've owned many Jaguars over the past 40 years (Mk I, II, X, 420G, E-type, XJ6, and XJS's) and spent relatively little on mechanical and bodywork restoration. In most cases, they were my daily drivers over the years and in every case, the departed were sold for a profit. Over all these years, I've had exquisite transportation not only for free but at a profit. For me, however, the monetary investment is second to the joys of ownership, the accomplishments, and education gotten from owning and driving these gorgeous cars.

 

my experinces with XJS and XJ that have been converted to Chevy running gear, is the cars seem to be 1/2 the price of a good running V12!
there was one in Florida with a 454 BBC,7.4L ,and the asking price was $1500. dollars.

it was around for close to a year before someone bought it.

all well and good ,but some people see my side decal, mostly younger crowd, say "Hey Joe this ones got a 12 cylinder motor,WOW"

 

Me and my kitty appreciate your kind words.

Well, it sounds like a great plan and I'd be more than glad to have the opportunity to meet with a fellow XJS enthusiast (or) two, along with Mike.

Funny that you mentioned the Petersen Museum because, just yesterday, I was thinking about how long it has been since the last time I was there, as I was reading about the constant changes and various different cars that this place typically features. So, hopefully this new year or next we'll have a chance to check it out and to talk about our prefered subject: Our beloved XJS'.

 

I thought that owning a Jaguar convertible was way beyond anything I could ever dream of back in 2004, but I found a 1994 4.0 XJS with less than 75,000 miles for $7500. I took the leap, and for the last 12 years I have been driving a car that still seems out of my league. I agree with several other posters that the poor build and reliability of the early XJS scared a lot of prospective buyers away, all the better for me. My Jag is actually the most reliable car I have ever owned, and a valve job in 2009 is the only expensive repair I have had to make. I plan on driving it until the wheels fall off, so I could care less about what I could get for it. And I am pretty sure that I will never again be able to buy a car that provides so many smiles per mile.

 

Wow, that was a great buy, Capper. I purchased my '94 in 2000 with 48,000 miles, but I paid $20K for it, or just shy of 3 times what you paid. Of course, in 2000 mine was four years newer than yours and with 25k less miles, but still, you got a very nice deal at $7.5K.

I see that you had a valve job done and that is super because, taking into account the fact that the AJ6 (and AJ16) engines have a practically indestructible bottom end, renewing the head completes the package and guarantees a long and happy life for the kitty. My engine pretty much proves this point to be true: more than ten year ago I installed an English nitrous system that has been set to 130 HP above the AJ6's stock 219 HP for a total of somewhere 370 HP when the rest of the mods are included, yet, in spite of the higher internal stress that producing this kind of power generates, the engine runs and keeps running perfectly smooth. A mustang would probably need forged pistons for this, but the AJ6/16 XJS does not because its bottom end belongs to another league. So, again, when you do the top (head) you've got an engine that will out last the rest of the car.

BTW, I had a valve job done to my kitty as well.
Because of the nitrous' higher compression, I decided to have a HD head gasket installed, so since the head had to come off anyway, we took advantage of that and had the head refurbished as well, along with having the head ported and polished.

Cheers,

 

Here’s another way to look at the prices the XJS fetches. We forget about whatever’s going on with the TV car auctions and rather look at the ongoing sales prices from car sales websites, plus we compare these prices to a car of similar stature/category. We all agree in that the XJS is a very special car, but we should also keep in mind the fact that there aren’t many cars in the same category that the XJS belongs to, meaning a technically refined, two door convertible GT featuring a very unique and distinguished body style and an original price tag that denoted its sophistication. How many cars do you know that match these credentials?

So, since it is my intention here to assess the XJS current value by means of comparing it to other cars manufactured and sold during the same period, we need to, first, find such an equivalent car to the XJS. The period that I’ve chosen for this purpose is to coincide with the last three years of XJS production, i.e. 1994, 1995 and 1996. I will later attempt to do similarly with the last three pre-facelift years V12 convertibles. I can write a list of many GT cars of the late ‘80’s thru mid ‘90’s, but take my word, there’s only one GT car from those years that’s equivalent to the XJS and that truly matches what the XJS is and that car is the popular Mercedes SL of ’94 thru ’96. The Jaguar XJS and the Mercedes SL are, both, very classy, very unique cars that stand alone in the GT car category of the subject period. Most other candidates do not sell near the number of cars that these two are always featuring in the pages of popular auto sales websites.

So, yes, we’re comparing on-going sales prices between the Jaguar XJS vs. the Mercedes SL. Data was just taken from current Auto trader sales ads, trying to keep similar mileage so we compare apples to apples. For some reason this time there were very few, if any, V12’s, so in order to match mileage with the SL cars, they all wound up being straight sixes. On the SL side, most are SL500’s with only a couple of SL320’s. Another important point is the original sticker prices. Yes, with the facelift XJS’ we drive very expensive cars, clearly over $60K (and much more if a V12), all the way back to 20 years ago but they were still a bargain when compared to the SL cars, with the 1994 SL500 at $99,500 and the 1996 SL500 at $89,900…

This table below represents a snap shot of ads prices, all captured within 30 minutes.

Mercedes Benz SL
MY Model Miles Autotrader $$
1994 SL500 68,902 miles $8,950
1994 SL500 71,168 miles $7,990
1994 SL500 89,198 miles $5,475

1995 SL500 53,000 miles $8,000
1995 SL500 63,458 miles $13,995
1995 SL320 76,044 miles $8,997

1996 SL500 70,194 miles $13,950
1996 SL500 81,677 miles $6,999
1996 SL320 88,394 miles $7,999


Jaguar XJS Conv.
MY Engine Miles Autotrader $$ Price difference and % Difference
1994 AJ6 68,890 miles $12,900 +$3,950 and 44% higher
1994 AJ6 73,793 miles $14,500 +$6,510 and 81% higher
1994 AJ6 83,240 miles $9,700 +$4,225 and 77% higher

1995 AJ16 52,800 miles $19,900 +$11,900 and 149% higher
1995 AJ16 73,000 miles $17,900 +$3,905 and 28% higher
1995 AJ16 73,799 miles $12,499 +$3,502 and 39% higher

1996 AJ16 72,598 miles $13,995 +$45 and 0.3% higher
1996 AJ16 76,000 miles $10,399 +$3,400 and 49% higher
1996 AJ16 88,000 miles $12,999 +$5,000 and 63% higher

Again, an effort was made to try to match miles as close as possible with the ads available.

The prices in these ads clearly show a consistent trend with the Jaguar XJS selling at higher prices than the equivalent miles Mercedes SL cars of the same model years. It should also be noted that this time there was an unusually high number of Jaguar XJS' with very low miles and selling for over $20K and $30K, actually many more than Mbz SL cars with very low miles.

So, there. For what the XJS is, a magic GT car, elbow to elbow with the $100K Benz, the American car crowd may see them both as cars to be careful with to choose because of their level of sophistication and the future maintenance cost risks that this may imply, which is the reason why Mustang, Camaro and Dodge ("simpler" cars) will always sell more.

The XJS is not only a spectacular car, but it also appears to be slowly making some solid progress in the value department, regardless of what the auctions get. I'm always surveying sales and prices and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the XJS page with very few single digit prices in it , plus the great number of low to fairly low miles cars, man, what a market. And we can't forget that the Mercedes dealers were selling the SL cars for $90K to $100K at the same time that Jaguar was selling the XJS' for just a little over $60K. Today's SL's being sold indicate pride and care from their owners, looking very nice, very clean and really beautiful cars that, truly, I wouldn't mind owning one, myself, although a second XJS may be the preferred way to go....

Cheers,

 

I've been looking on and off at XJSs in the last couple years, and I think values have gone up since I started looking. There was a day when you could buy a very nice low mileage V12 XJS all day long for $5000! Now it seems like the same cars are listed for $7500 or 10000.