Junkyard Find: 1987 Jaguar XJ6

January 27th, 2020 7:37 AM

Jaguar built the Series III Jaguar XJ for the 1979 through 1992 model years, and so I’ve been seeing these cars in the big self-service vehicle graveyards since, well, the middle 1980s. They still show up in such yards to this day, as long-neglected project cars get swept up in yard- and driveway-clearance projects, but I’ll only document those that are particularly interesting.

A very clean British Racing Green XJ6 from the last model year for the Series III’s straight-six engine certainly qualifies, so here we go!

As we can see from the tags on the sliced-off California license plate (I found this car in a San Francisco Bay Area yard), Barry’s ’87 Jag was a driver not so long ago. My first guess for the junkyardization of Barry’s Jag is that something expensive failed in the electrical system and Barry decided to cut his losses. My second guess: Barry couldn’t get the car to pass California’s draconian emissions testing (probably due to the aforementioned electrical system causing some sensor or solenoid to behave erratically) and he decided to cut his losses. Third guess is just an accumulation of unpaid parking tickets and the visit from a tow truck not summoned by Barry.

You could still buy a Series III XJ after the 1987 model year, but only with a V12 engine. Jaguar put plenty of sixes in the subsequent XJs, of course.

This interior is damn near perfect, aside from a bit of lacquer cracking on the wood paneling. I hope some Bay Area XJ owner grabbed the seats and door panels out of this car prior to its date with the cold steel jaws of The Crusher.

Not many miles on it. Barry really babied his ’87.

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2 of 49 comments

Peeryog on Jan 27, 2020

This is a piker's car. If you really wanted understated class, you bought a Rover P5B

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ToolGuy on Jan 28, 2020

Grab this now and set it aside for an EV conversion several years from now.

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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.
Daniel J I believe anyone, at any level, should get paid as much as the market will bear. Why should CEOs have capped salaries or compensation but middle management shouldn't? If companies support poor CEOs and poor CEOs keep getting rewarded, it's up to the consumer and investors to force that company to either get a better CEO or to reduce the salary of that CEO. What I find hilarious is that consumers will continue to support companies where the pay for the CEOs is very high. And the same people complain. I stopped buying from Amazon during the pandemic. Everyone happily buys from them but the CEO makes bank. Same way with Walmart and many other retailers. Tim Cook got 100m in compensation last year yet people line up to buy Iphones. People who complain and still buy the products must not really care that much.