So I'm looking for a project car a couple of weeks ago, and find a rather decent 89 XJS V12 for sale semi-locally for $1000. The car had been listed less than 2 weeks.

So I call the guy, ask some questions about it, and he tells me he really needs to sell the car quickly. I ask for a day to contemplate my options.

I called him back at 3 p.m. the next day, and here's what I get:

"Oh, I didn't think you were serious....we had the car crushed this morning."

#@%$#!

Jess

 

thats the problem with idiot sellers.

if you had said "theres a couple other cars im looking at as well. give me a day to check them out" he would have assumed your just a tire kicker and sold it to the first guy to offer him $400.

if you had said "i really like the car, and i want to check it out as soon as i look at a few others" he would have been calling you back every 5 minutes for the next week asking when your going to come buy it.

idiots.

 

Do you know if the car has been crushed or just sold to the junkyard? Maybe you can buy it from them. I don't know how long a car sits or if it is immediately crushed once it hits the yard. Good luck!

 

I'm guessing if he sold it to the 'crushers' then likely it was too far gone to even be considered a project car, ie: frame rot. On the other hand, he really could have been desperate for cash, and those guys will always be there to give peanuts for it. I'm willing to bet they keep it off to the side for the time being as they probably know they can make more $ parting it out.

 

It's crushed. They called the junk yard trying to get it back after I called him the second time. Or at least, the junkyard is telling him it's crushed.

Now I'm going to make you guys feel even better about the situation -- Southern car, no rust. Interior was even in good shape. Beautiful dash. Black car with grey leather and a dark mahogany wood treatment.

It needed paint, a fuel pump and A/C service. But it "was taking up too much space in the yard and (his) wife wants it gone."

Jess

 

I would think that a crushed car is worth, what, about $50? So the idiot seller let it go for less than that? And what about the morons at the wrecker that crushed it. They could have parted it out and made a couple hundred.

Where have all the brains gone?

 

I don't know and it drives me literally out of my mind sometime. Prior to really going full-bore into Jags, I did a lot with Mitsubishi's Starion (aka Chrysler Conquest), an 80s car that, in my opinion, was actually a very fine car despite its Mitsu pedigree, smartly styled and a great performer.

And also very rare. Yet our owners' club was in a constant fight to save cars from destruction. In the Starion's case, you had the added pressure of owners not knowing really what they had, which isn't (or shouldn't be) a problem when there's a cat on the hood.

The fuel injectors alone on an old Starion can fetch as much as $500. The intercooler, another $200. Take out the headlight and power window switches, you have another $200. Turbo, another $200. I could get those parts off in an hour, two hours tops, and have $1000 in my pocket and still send the car to its death. Yet we'd go to a Pull-A-Part and there would be a nearly intact Starion suffering from some minor ailment like a blown head gasket.

Jess