Junkyard Find: 1999 Jaguar XJR

October 2nd, 2017 7:33 AM

Say it’s 1999 and you’re shopping for a powerful and flashy European luxury sedan. Do you spend $51,300 for a new Mercedes-Benz E430? $65,000 for an Audi A8 4.2? A gleaming BMW 740i with a $66,970 price tag? Or do you pony up $68,450 for the Jaguar XJR, knowing it will depreciate faster than Confederate money after Appomattox… and not caring, because you’re such a baller that you know you’ll get another Jag in a couple of years?Today’s Junkyard Find, spotted in a Northern California self-service yard, shows us what happens to such a car when it ends up in the hands of its third or fourth owner.

The supercharger is long gone, and the engine’s valley became a luxurious rodent nest during the years of storage that took place after something costing five figures broke.

Someone went to the trouble to stuff up the spark plug holes, indicating that thoughts of repairing this 370-horse monster stayed at least somewhat alive. For a while.

Don’t think of this car the way it looks now. Think of it when it was new, probably in the hands of a freshy-minted Bay Area venture capitalist, no doubt flush with money from big deals involving the likes of Pets.com or Webvan. In other words, a 27-year-old who was driving a salvage-title Hyundai Accent by 2003.

Most of the XJR-specific trim is gone, but a shadow of the car’s former devil-may-car opulence remains. We haven’t seen many Jaguars in this series, for some reason— just this 2000 S-Type and this 1987 XJ-S.

Portuguese relays with Jaguar branding! That’s even better than relays by The Prince of Darkness.

“It has never been and never will be for everyone.”

#1990s #1999 #1999JaguarXJR #BritishCars #DownOnTheJunkyard #Jaguar #JaguarXJ #JaguarXJR #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #LuxuryCars #XJR #X308

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Jacob_coulter on Oct 07, 2017

Jaguar lost me after they stopped making this generation sedan. Every 4 door from them after this has just not looked right to me. This was a classic design that has aged well and the subtle changes always looked classy and timeless. Plus that interior is absolutely gorgeous.

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6point3 on Nov 02, 2017

iT'S A SAD STATE, but I have seen a lot of great cars going through these self serve (or destroy) junkyards..... an overabundance of cars sreated by the automakers. There really is no more real need for new cars except the one created in people's mind.

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Kurkosdr Someone should tell the Alfa Romeo people that they are a badge owned by a French company now.The main reason PSA bought FiatChrysler is that PSA has the technology to enter the luxury market but customers don't want a French luxury car for psychological/mindshare reasons. FiatChrysler has the opposite problem: they have lots of still-respected brands but not always the technology to make good cars. Not to say that if FCA has a good platform, it won't be used in a PSA car.In other words, if those Alfa Romeo buds think that they will remain a silo with their own bespoke platforms and exclusive sheet metal, they are in for a shock. This is just the start.
Arthur Dailey For the Hornet less expensive interior materials/finishings, decontent just a little, build it in North America and sell it for less and everyone should be happy with both the Dodge and the Alfa.
Bunkie I so wanted to love this car back in the day. At the time I owned a GT6+ and I was looking for something more modern. But, as they say, this car had *issues*. The first of which was the very high price premium for the V8. It was a several thousand dollar premium over the TR-7. The second was the absolutely awful fuel economy. That put me off the car and I bought a new RX-7 which, despite the thirsty rotary, still got better mileage and didn’t require premium fuel. I guess I wasn’t the only one who had this reaction because, two years later, I test-drove a leftover that had a $2,000 price cut. I don’t remember being impressed, the RX-7 had spoiled me with how easy it was to own. The TR-8 didn’t feel quick to me and it felt heavy. The first-gen RX was more in line with the idea of a light car that punched above its weight. I parted ways with both the GT6+ and the RX7 and, to this day, I miss them both.
Fred Where you going to build it? Even in Texas near Cat Springs they wanted to put up a country club for sport cars. People complained, mostly rich people who had weekend hobby farms. They said the noise would scare their cows. So they ended up in Dickinson, where they were more eager for development of any kind.
MaintenanceCosts I like the styling of this car inside and out, but not any of the powertrains. Give it the 4xe powertrain - or, better yet, a version of that powertrain with the 6-cylinder Hurricane - and I'd be very interested.