Hi all E-Type owners,

Like many of you, I'm wondering how deeply under water I should be, pouring seemingly unlimited funds into my stunner of a Series II OTS.

New wiring harness? Who knows when I'll be left by the side of the road.
Just sorting out the windshield spritzer....another cool grand? My tech doesn't even want to do it!
Find the period Tool Roll, let alone the correct Jack...good luck, try 3K to make it happen, if you can find it.

When to bail and sell? Or Sweet Surrender and keep spending the dough!
Hey, I'm not Steve McQueen! Existential as well as fiscal rhetorical question to ponder.

 

when I bought my 68 2+2, the guy that appraised it said something worth remembering. He said since the car was not even close to concourse, just drive it and have fun. I haven't forgotten that and still enjoy tinkering on the car, but my tool bag is a kid's red backpack, and I have coloured stickers on the speedometer to give me corrected speeds. I guess it depends on what you bought the car for. The market is red hot right now so selling your car should not be an issue if you have reached your chequebook limit.

 

Thanks for that....I agree, had I bought a driver....but it's easy to dump 10K for just a sorting, so after paying 60K for a top end car, it beomces too precious to have stickers on the speedo. One ding, and that's 10K off the asking price, if that comes to pass. So when is an asset become a liability?

 

"So when is an asset become a liability?"
For me it is when I no longer enjoy the asset and the fun and smiles have left. 30 years ago I bought a XK150 FHC that was in reasonable shape. I spent almost 9 years of spare time rebuilding, tinkering/repairing and sorting out the car until she was perfect. When I finally started driving it around I had to be careful where to park to prevent door dings, which roads to take to be safe, etc., and I realised that I was not having fun anymore. The fun for me was the tinkering and sorting and it was now a finished car, so I sold it. Life is short and too stressful to be manufacturing more angst. Tinkering with, and driving my '68 is fun right now, spedo stickers and all, but if the fun ends... the car will go.

 

Wise words, thanks for writing!

 

Seems many of your questions are personal calls, and a 'How much risk can you stomach, and for how long?'

When I redid my last couple cars (Ferrari BB512 and DeTomaso Pantera) I knew I'd keep them both for longer term (ended up 7 years on the BB and 9 years on the Pantera). I was 'under water' for 3/4 of their ownership. Neither were full off restorations, just very healthy rolling restorations.

Once the tides turned (values rose) I had to make a decision to keep as toys or to cash out as assets. Liquidated the BB first (nice gain but too soon by a mile!) and the Pantera just 3 weeks ago. I enjoyed both of those cars immensely, drove them pretty regularly, met a lot of nice people as a result.

My E type just got back from the restoration facility after 2 straight years. Taken 100% apart, reassembled. I didn't mean for my car to be 'open checkbook', but it turned out that way! Came to the conclusion that no one intentionally restores a car to #2 condition. Once you're way deep in, your 'sweet surrender' scenario will have already taken over.

Honestly, I lost a little interest in it over that time, and am probably a tiny bit under what it'd bring. But that's a guess. I don't feel like the market will stay this strong, but the E is so well established, the 'fall' won't be as dramatic as for some of the late comers. At least that's my take.

And btw, you can get your windshield spritzer going for well under a grand, and don't stress out over the tool kit. Get the underbelly right, build the car around the hardpoints, and make it a car that functions and appears at the 90+% level, THEN you can go mad with period radios and the right grease gun.

So, consider this: Lets say you 'over' invest by 20%, but you drive the car and pamper it. In time, your will be even or ahead. When you get ahead, you can comfortably make the decision and consider your 'value' in having enjoyed the car.

The shame is those who build a #1 car, don't drive it, but just 'look' at their #1 car, nervous about the market, driving it, the occasional chip, and don't enjoy their over-investment one bit.

The first weekend this car was finished, my wife and I drove it for about 80 or so miles in a state we weren't familiar with at all (for Santa Fe concourso). It behaved well, needed a little cleaning for the show, had a ball. Pictures are of it finally 'back at home'.

Point is, don't spend all that money and time with your eye solely on the investment aspect. It'll drive you nuts. If you're just going to look at it, buy a painting. At least that's its purpose.

 

More wise words. Yes, 'sweet surrender' captures the Jag experience most, of balancing It as an amazing bucket-list asset over its liability, one scratch and it falls from high #3 to what? Yet it is a stunningly decadent object of art, a guilty pleasure, politically incorrect as they come....in Boulder CO you get Baby Boomer thumbs up, to 'where's your Prius', looks.
I think alll of these philosophical and personal calls from the E-Type wilderness should be part of the conversation...and I hope others, as wise as our commentators, will also join in.

 

If this is your car and you are keeping it as you really love this car, why worry about the money. Enjoy! All cars cost something as they are some of the most expensive things you will buy. You bought your house, so how much more you going to invest in it? Apartment or lease, you are paying daily. Car, fun, pride and joy. Gonna play gotta pay!

 

Series II ots probably not going to be worth over six figures unless 110 point concours. Would cost $140k+ to make one that way.
If you have a stunner of a driver consider yourself lucky! I would fix things that needed it for safety (wiring). btw... most wiring doesn't "go bad" within wire runs, most times it's the terminations at each end of a wire or the devices it's connected to. Next is botched wiring by a former owner that shouldn't have been dicking with wiring in the first place. Haven't seen too many cars that I thought needed a complete wiring harness. These cars are as simple mechanically and electrically as it gets.

Screw the jack, and the squirters unless you plan on driving it cross country. (squirters aren't rocket science wth?)
Sell if you're not in love with the car, or if you're like some I know who have one just to be seen in. You may be happier with a newer vette/mustang/camaro/mopar, they're all killer.
Wish I had a stunner to drive...

 

I did not play a philosopher on TV....But, here goes...Classic cars are a HOBBY...Sometimes, they turn out to be an investment, but rarely....
If you were a golfer, and played golf 3 times a week, without even belonging to a fancy golf club, you would be spending 15K a year, for the privelege, not including equipment (another 5K)...At the end of the year, you would have a lot of banged up old equipment, and nothing else.....
The cost of our HOBBY, is the difference between what you are paying for the car, including service and upgrades, and what you end up selling it for, when you are tired of
it....In actual money, it ends up being a pretty inexpensive ...Not to mention the actual value of the enjoyment you get out of driving and tinkering with the thing.....At least we have something to show for our money, besides a bunch of worn out golf clubs.
Edward

 

Squirters are one of the top ten worst jobs on an E, that is unless you have hands the size of a four year old and arms that are four feet + long.. ;-)

Jeff

 

The few words of wisdom that I live by is "you never overpay, you just paid too soon"

meaning that in time you will recoup your "INVESTMENT"!

That one word is what keeps me sane.

 

Wow, Lotsa philosophers with metaphors and most importantly great rationalizers. That seems the key, to rationalize this quilty pleasure away, make yourself believe it's fitting for a baby boomer who never made much money to covet this objet d'art, tear around, to be a little showy, and yes, to find a tech with Audrey Hepburn hands willing to contort himself to rework the windshield spritzers and to deal with the thousand little parts of my accelerator which takes a bionic foot to push the pedal, all at $90 an hr, another 2K, Hey I'm worth it!

 

Hey Jeff, I'll stand corrected. I was thinking the plumbing was in front of the firewall, but judging from your post it must be behind the firewall! Like the heater tubes... Dad worked for hours trying to get the new stainless tubes in to no avail, my youngest brother came over and had them in place in about twenty minutes!
Small hands yes.

 

Well, I am saying it's ok if you earned it and enjoy it, no matter what your financial status may be. If you're lucky enough to have one and love it, maintain it best you can and drive it and hug it once a day. To hell with what anyone else thinks. Awesome car, some of the best memories of my life are in dads '67. Not many things mean as much to me as that car.
Can you do any of the repair work yourself? The accelerator may not be too big a project.
BTW... you did ask a philosophical question.

 

No, my days of messing with vintage cars are over.....the tenet, a little knowledge is dangerously applies to me....Sure I use to get by working on my '65 VW camper in 1971, nowadays all I can do is the cosmetic stuff. I know, I know, shouldn't own one of these exoctics less you can work on'm. But now, 'old and in the way', I'm trying to get by with an honest tech!
David

 

I am in close to 15k sorting my 69 fhc. I was talking to the owner of the shop who does the repairs I can't just the other day authorizing him to charge another 1k for some more work before I pick it up for the long drive back from Denver. he has been wrenching/racing e's for 33 years, is 65 and now just comes in 1/2 time. I made the comment that he would not still be doing this if he didn't love it and his reply is the only reason he does it is that he loves to bring these old cars back to live. that was exactly my intent when I bought a condition 3 car in the first place. so over the years I will do the most necessary things first and enjoying the hell out of driving it and continue to make improvements over the years as I can afford it. it's my hobby and what I have decided to spend my discretionary income. and if I lose a few $ or even a few K$ when I am done with it I have still fulfilled my initial dream and brought one of these precious cars back to life.


my 2 cents thanks all

 

Bill, we're leading parallel lives.....it's more than 2 cents, it's a narrative about having a car that is a one-off, indeed even 1969 was a watershed year for many of us back in the day, and now at 64 having a bit of discretionary income for this guilty pleasure, 1969 gets revisited. But I still cringe when I realize the accelerator linkage is probably bent or gummed up and needs another 1K, or the windshield squirters need another grand, or whatever mechanicals or Lucus nightmares await.....Sure driving the hell out of it is great, but one wonders what bugaboo will show itself, what the next 3 grand will be about and again, where to draw the line. Right now it sits there gorgeous and well sorted. Almost factory new looking. So am hanging in with all the rest of you guys, an elite club to be sure, all in the same philosophical quandary, having something special, almost to the point that it's alive!
David

 

Cannot understand the fear of putting $3000 a yr. in a vehicle that brings over $80K at auction. If you have the car 20 yrs., you have invest $60K which by then will probably half of what it brings then in auction. Love the car, fix it. Fix the car yourself ( get hands dirty ) and save money and feel better about yourself and the car as a whole. If you have the car just to be elite, that is your thing. I do not have the money to buy a good one, so I repair and drive. Been doing that 50 yrs. now. Have owned 120, XJS, XJ6s,MKIIs and presently own 2 MKIs. Cannot afford the E at this time.

 

I graduated from ga tech in 69 driving a 1960 tr-3 with a bad steering rack so it didn't turn as far left (as I recall) as right and did have the money to even get it fixed. maybe this is just my graduation present coming 45 years late. it sure as hell would have been my choice for a grad present at the time. you said almost to the point of being alive. there is something almost mystical about the e's and I get such a kick out of young people who have never seen one live. they ask questions and take all kinds of pictures, but then I bet you know that as well as I do. best of luck with your baby. bill