I was just cruising along minding my own business when this pulled out right in front of my wallet. WHAM! The damage was completely unavoidable but fortunately not too severe.


1985 V12

 

 

You mean the damage to your wallet was not to severe: yet!

 

 

looks in nice shape. no visible rust anyway.

 

 

Very nice looking, now if the "low lifes" would return the stuff they stole, you'd be in business. I don't think I'd hold my breath waiting though, as you probably wouldn't look good as a SMURF ! LOL!

Jack

 

 

I used to buy wrecked or non-running Toyota Supras and part them out many years ago. I went through that quandary with one 1984 model in particular that I bought for $200 at a charity auction. It wouldn't start, had some minor hail damage and a sunbleached and cracked interior. I mainly just wanted the set of brand new Michelin tires off of it. I diagnosed the no-start as a dead simple fix that the donor had just overlooked. It ran and drove perfectly so I was starting to get sentimental. However, with the cost of paint and the interior made of the rare earth element, unobtainium, I was still leaning toward parting it out. Then out of the blue, a club member in Toronto who was doing the same thing came across a wrecked one the same color and for $1,000 I could have a whole mint Canadian interior boxed and shipped. At that point I decided it was worth doing the hail repair myself and paying a local professional $1,600 to lay the paint. After it was sold for $5,000, I probably only cleared a nickel an hour for my time.

I would have made more profit to have parted it out, but here's the rest of the story. The guy who bought it started taking it to local car shows, one of which was "Cruisin for a Cure" which benefits prostate cancer research. At these shows, they have a clinic bus offering free prostate cancer screenings and he took them up on their free blood test for men over 50. The week after the show, he got a call. Turns out he had a very aggressive form of prostate cancer and he would not have otherwise known until it had spread as there's typically not much in the way of symptoms in early stages. They were able to surgically remove it all and he's fine. After that he started volunteering with the group every year and there've been dozens of men who've survived because of the free tests at the annual car show. Not saying that saving one XJS will cause all sorts of miraculous things to happen, but this is after all, a very unique hobby we're in. One car started at a charity auction and helped some adult get a high school diploma and then later wound up saving a life or perhaps even several. Sometimes we just feel compelled to do things and we don't know why. Don't even know why I'm compelled to post as I don't have an XJS, but trust your gut instinct on this one.

 

Nice story.