Yeah well unless you can do it yourself, repairs are often out of reach for folks on fixed income driving high mileage old beaters like the red Jag.

Sometimes it's just as easy to spend the dough buying another car than to fix what you have. Especially if your old beater is an exotic.

Me and my Jag would be f'd if I had to hire some guy at $100+ an hour to do all the work that's been done. Plus I don't think most mechanics are particularly competent these days.

Larry

 

I wouldn't call that red '40 a beater. Just had some paint fading on the roof from what I can see. Buying another old car is usually more risky than putting money into one you already own and know the history of. To purchase a new comparable vehicle is certainly more expensive. If you are on a fixed budget then an older basic 4cyl car is your best bet or a new ultra econobox like the three cylinder Mitsubishi Mirage.

It's just amazing what shows up as "junk" in junkyards. I have seen a near spotless Mercedes-Benz W124 diesel and seven year old lesser cars like Hondas and Nissan. The Mercedes had just one speck of rust on the trunk and the interior was like new.

 

I have to admit that it was an XJ40 featured in a TV commercial that first caught my eye. The crisp lines just appeal to me. I like the fishtanks but especially like the tinted rear lights. The greenhouse is so airy, I'm glad that they carried it over to the X300. The guys over at "Driven To Write" declare that this was the last modern evolution of Jaguar styling until the XF broke the latest design cues. They did not like the retro styling period which extended from 1995 to 2012. I like the XJ40, but I love my X300.

 

I'm with you, Doug. I prefer the quad-headlamp look and converted our '93 VDP (our '88 Sovereign came with them).


My first car was a '68 Spitfire and is the reason I can repair cars today. My dad was a car guy and did all of the work on our family vehicles. As an example, one Saturday I came home from playing with friends and he had the engine from the family station wagon apart on the picnic table in the back yard. He rebuilt the engine over the weekend so he could drive the car to work again on Monday.

But I didn't have much interest in auto repair until I bought the Spitfire. Suddenly I had to learn how to repair a car. It was no longer an option, because the Spitfire needed something repaired about every other week!

But I absolutely loved that car. The MGB that followed was bigger, heavier, more powerful and faster, but lacked the beautiful Michelotti styling and featherweight flickable handling of the Spitfire. Hope you find a good one - especially one with chrome bumpers.

Cheers,

Don