Hello All,
I am a young classic British car enthusiast and I have been fortunate enough to own a few classics over the years (a Triumph Spitfire, Austin America, Triumph Herald) including a 1965 Jaguar 3.8 S for a brief period in 2019-2020.
I absolutely loved that 3.8 S, but had to sell it as it needed a lot of attention at the time and I was on furlough. So the car sold.
Now things are stable again and I have owned another Spitfire as a daily driver, but I am longing to get back into a classic 3.8 S and plan on fixing up my Spitfire and selling it in a year to fund the Jag. My question is, how much should I look to spend for a classic S-Type? The classic car dealer I bought my former car from was asking $25k which I thought was the norm. But when I sold it, one buyer said since it was an automatic, it was only worth $16k-$18k.
I'm just hoping there is still time to get back into the classic Jaguar sedan market before the values get dragged up with the E-Type/Mk2 values.

 

It is a question that cannot be easily answered as so much depends on condition of body & interior. Please fill in where you reside & an appropriate person will answer ~ e.g. Cass for UK. Add it permanently to your personal data so it pops up top right. (Location) $25K should buy you a near concours car with some tidying up to do. See Hagerty as a reference guide. They have a US site as well with current values based on sales. Saloons will never achieve E Type values but I understand what you mean. 3.8 litre, Manual cars with Overdrive fetch the highest values in most markets.
Good Luck!

 

in the USA the S type sells for less money in running condition.

 

monitor online classic car and auction sites or attending car shows is the best advice i can give. after a while you'll get a good idea of what you can expect to get for a given amount of money. obtaining firsthand knowledge may be awkward or unworkable depending on how much time and effort one wishes to spend driving around and talking to sellers if one is not seriously looking to buy.

 

Don't buy a car from a dealer. Buy from a private seller. Do your home work and know the car you are trying to buy inside out. Learn all the possible faults, where to find them and what they look like. If you know a fault and find it that can be used as a bargaining tool for a cheaper price.
Buying from a private seller will be cheaper but you will not get a warranty. Having said that if you know what you are looking at then a warranty is useless on an old car like a classic Jaguar.
Buying from a private seller means you are speaking to the person who has looked after the car, washed it, polished it and maintained it for a long time. They will not pull the wool over your eyes as much as a dealer will who possibly knows very little of the cars history.
Provenance and paper work is very important. Receipts, paper work, old photos of the car with the previous owners, all good information to have.
You can negotiate with a private seller especially if you can show that you are the one to take on their pride and joy, to look after it and cherish it as they possibly have.

 

Thank you all for the great advice so far, it is nice to see that the values are pretty much where they were when I bought my S Type in late 2019. I'm in the Los Angeles, California region, a typical hot market for classic cars with prices usually to match.
I tried to reach out to the buyer of my former car with the hope of buying it back in the future, but it has been a week with no response. It is possible he may have passed away in the two years I last spoke to him. I will try to follow up with a letter to his address in hopes of reaching a family member. If not, I will just hunt the local online sites for a suitable replacement. A local Jag shop also has an S Type in storage, but it has been parked outdoors for years so is probably a mess.

 

Then the Hagerty US site would be a better guide. I know what you mean about LA. I lived in the Bay Area, Marin County for a while. San Francisco is also a hotspot for classics.

 

Be careful with Hagerty’s site they mixed in XKE with the S-type/420 valuations.

I’ve told them about it a while back and it’s not correct yet.

Cheers
Bob

 

Good God ~ really !!!. Better stick to the UK site less maybe about 30% for US prices being lower. S Types are fetching what I consider inflated value in France & Germany. In SA I've just had my car valued for insurance & it's worth just over half of what it cost me to restore to concours level as judged by the Crankhandle Club adjudicating panel. I had massive offers for it from 2 persons the day the restoration was finished (well over restoration cost ~ close to double) but I built this car to enjoy not to sell. My family have already been told to ship it to the UK for auction as a truly rust free SA car when I fall over. (it is now well protected with buckets of Tectyl). Boroscope evaluation proved there was not even an ounce of rust in the 3 part sills (you pull a body plug out in the rear wheelarch for access). Other areas were easier to check. The car had never left our dry Highveld from the day that it was built/assembled at CDA East London. Engines were machined & assembled from aged blank blocks & heads to meet our local content requirements that were, at that time, by weight. Machining was done on new state of the art equipment for the era paid for by the SA taxpayer. Lyons did himself a good deal with Government.

You can read about the CKD cars on the Register that is mostly correct. I could nit pick it but won't. Someone went to a lot of trouble. E Type numbers are rubbish ~ there are more now than claimed then unless there has been lots of importing in the intervening period.

420's are a hard sell in SA & should not be conflated with S Types.

 

What are "Chronic Kidney Disease" cars Glyn ?

 

LOL Jeff ~ "Completely Knocked Down" ~ although that was never reality. Much local content.
We were in Phase 2 by then = 55% by weight. Many parts suppliers set up shop here to meet requirements & radiators etc. were produced by Silverton. AE&CI even produced the vinyl here for non leather upholstered cars which remained Connolly.

 

My experience is that generally it's better to pay too much for a good car than a fair price for one that needs a lot of work, unless, of course, you really want the experience of creating your own car. Good certainly doesn't include looking good, but full of bondo. For that case, rust holes are much better value than the same holes filled and painted. Take a magnet wrapped in a wrag with you.

A good quality restoration is never going to turn a short-term profit, unless you're a professional with an outstanding reputation working on high value cars. However, there's an excellent chance that it will pay you back in ten or more years, if you take good care of the car. At worst, you'll be financially way ahead of all those 'sensible' folks who spent the same cash on a modern Toyota! And you'll have had a load more fun along the way.

 

Yes Peter. At least it will retain value. Not drop like a stone the minute you drive it off the showroom floor.

 

I have to agree with Glyn and Peter.
My Mk1 and MK2 would probably be between 3 and 4 on the Hagarty scale.
They were both possibly 5 if that scale is extended when I bought them. They had lots of problems.
I paid a total of A$5K for the two cars. I probably sank a similar amount in repairs, parts etc. I do my own work in everything except seat upholstery.
I was recently urged by my insurer to increase the agreed value on these cars. The same company runs one of the major auction houses for classic cars.
They are now insured for a total of A$45K.
Well looked after old Jags will not only maintain value but may also increase

 

The biggest expense in a restoration is labour. If like Bill and myself you can do the work yourself then the cost of a restoration is relatively cheap as parts are easy to come by either new or secondhand. I bought my S type for £4500 but I got the right car where 90% of the welding repairs had already been done by the previous restorer. The quality was not great but I was able to tidy their work up. In total I spent £6000 on finishing the car over 16 months. Full bare metal respray, Engine and gear box rebuilt. Tried to restore and repair rather than replace with new. The car is worth £17 to £20k but over the last 7 years I have possibly earnt double that in hiring the car out for weddings and film work.
On the other hand a friend of mine is already up to £50,000 on restoring his 3.8 S Type. He has paid a garage to restore it for him, it has taken over two years but not yet finished.

 

I must hold the record time wise not cost wise (£50,000 & still going ~ madness) at approx 30 years to restore thanks to Company expat assignment & unreliable restorer that let the project languish until fired which cost me 2 full paint jobs. With our cheap labour cost & weak currency things did not turn out too bad! I did not have the time to do everything myself but helped where I could. Did all the Parts chasing, Research, & Manual thumbing. I was lucky. I had 1.5 donor cars bought for peanuts.

 

I had a friend who was restoring a Jaguar XK120 in his garage at home. Been doing it for thirty odd years. He had no intention of finishing it. He was a heart surgeon at our local hospital and after a long stressful day at work he would come home and destress in his garage tinkering with his restoration. Sadly he died before he had finished and the car was sold on by his estate.

 

Pity about your friend!!

And what do you think was missing from the 0.5 donor car? Easy one? IRS, Engine & transmission. Even still had front subframe, steering box, suspension & wheels. Full dash & instruments the lot. Kit Cobra here we come. Engine & transmission obviously sold to finance the V8 etc. Many cars around SA minus IRS.

 

We are wandering into an area, the duration of a project and bad work by restorers, that it's better for me not to think too much about. The consolation is that the restoration journey can be as satisfying as its completion and is a great distraction from the problems of life. Mathew Crawford, physicist and philosopher, makes the case in 'The importance of working with your hands' as does John Lumley, who was a really nice man and an academic engineer who worked mainly on the statistical theory of turbulence, in 'Still life with cars.' I'll recommend both those books as items for the wanted list in your letters to Santa!

 

I purchased my S type in San Francisco in 2014. California weather preserves old cars. Forget about restoring any old car, buy a car that needs no restoration. Don't inmerse yourself in a money pit.