Sometimes sitcoms imitate life, or life imitates television. Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years got his 1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sedan for $1. Did I ever tell you about the time my Uncle Ken sold me his old Jag for a Dollar?
My Uncle Ken was my Aunt Linda’s husband, a successful surgeon from Orange County, and being from Trinidad, one of those weird outsiders in car ownership in the family. Although they normally kept a Buick as a grocery store car (normally a Skylark replaced every 7 or so years), there was a rotation of XJ6s for him and Mercedes Benz 250/280/280Es for her.
For whatever reason, he kept the first one, a Silver on Red Connolly 1970 Sedan with some mechanical malady so it sat at the base of their downhill driveway through all of my childhood. During the summer of 1991 we spent a week at their house, and Uncle Ken offered me the car for a cool $1. Being 9, and just thrilled to own my own car I promptly pulled a wadded dollar bill out of my wallet and took the keys.
For the rest of the vacation, promptly after breakfast, I’d go outside, pull off the car cover, unlock the doors and just play: all the switchgear, shift the dainty chrome shifter and utilize my 9 year old imagination that I was far more adult and winding this delightful sedan up the Pacific Coast Highway back home to the Bay Area.
Me and the fantasy Jag parted ways on Sunday, and I’d still visit it over the the next 15 years, unlock it, smell the ever stronger mold against the smell of Connolly Leather and wood, and wish for the dollars to bring it back to life. It’s now long gone, my Aunt Linda and Uncle Ken both dying in the past 10 years, and I haven’t a clue whatever happened to “My Jag.” But I do still have the keys in a box somewhere.
So you can understand the pang of childhood fantasy I felt yesterday when I walked past this slightly disheveled XJ6 sitting forlorn and elegant all at once in a driveway 5 blocks from my home. A piece of me still longs for my first car, even if it never ran.
I know whitewall tires are declasse nowadays, but that claret colored XJ6 with the whiteys looks good enough to eat with a spoon. The Series 1 XJ is one of the five loveliest cars of all time. Even if it never runs, it’s an inspiration to look at.
My first car was a neighbor’s 1957 Dodge, which was given to me at age 10. I crawled all over, in, and through that Dodge for a week before it got scrapped as planned. I got the keys, the ownership papers and the instrument cluster.
What a thrill for a car crazy 10 year old! Thanks Cliff!
Well gosh Laurence, there are always a few of these on eBay for sale for a reasonable price. Of course they are merely Jaguar “starter kits”, its up to you to make them into an actual serviceable car.
I admit I am constantly tempted by them. Especially in green with tan leather… sigh.
My first car, and it’s still yet to run, is my 1972 Jaguar XJ6. I had much of the same fantasy as a kid. My Dad and I went out to see it when I was in my early teens, and it was absolutely beautiful to me. I’d always had a blast when I was younger in his 1967 Sunbeam Alpine, and this car seemed like all of that and more in the package.
My XJ6 had sat in Louisiana for a long number of years before it got brought to Colorado. I’d found the original license plates in the car and I set them aside at some point. Maybe I’ll find them somewhere in my Dad’s garage. Sufficed to say, whatever the original problem was, we found out with evening work in the garage that had been overtaken by leaving the carbs off for the whole entire time when we discovered the engine was seized. And not in any small way, which we found after pulling the head. We filled the all of the cylinders with various penetrating oil waiting for the day we’d be able to get a budge on it and patience never won out. Work on the car stalled there, waiting for the motor to be pulled and a refreshed 4.2L I6 to be dropped in. It’s been 12 years now since we first got it, and I keep hoping I’ll be able to get the time and money together to get the car back on the road. It seems like a lot more Series III’s have been hitting the junkyard, as of late. Maybe one of them can give up their motor for the task.
My Dad did end up with a different running Series XJ, though, a 1977 XJ12L. That car was a blast to learn to drive in, and I felt extremely lucky for the privileged. It was as thirsty as a Suburban, but effortless power going up the side of a mountain.
I did end up buying a 1976 Jaguar XJ6L, after some repairs and a minor tune up and it’s been a blast to drive, but I do find myself wishing to see that 1972 back on the road.
–Evie
Evie, just for the heck of it, try pouring some Coca-Cola down those cylinders. My brother had a ’49 Ford with a stuck flathead six. He yanked the head, poured “the pause that refreshes” down the bores, and let it cogitate, ruminate and percolate for a couple of months. When we went back to it, he climbed in the engine bay and turned the crank pulley by hand. Coke – it’s the real thing!
They changed the Coke recipe at some stage i remember when it was the go to penetrating oil that could disolve teeth
You remind me that somewhere I still own a faded light green 63 Sedan DeVille that was given to me as a parts car in exchange for my getting it out of the owner’s driveway. It got towed to a small garage in rural northeast Indiana and shoved into a little group of derelict cars behind the repair shop. The deal with the owners was that I could leave it there if they were allowed to sell any parts off of it. With no keys and no title, I don’t suppose that my ownership claim is worth much these 30 years later. But I wonder if it is still there . . .
Okay a bit of selfishness on the part of me (and Paul). Can we make this an ongoing series? Everyone here has at least some fond memory of their first car.
I’d be all for it. The automotive love of my life is a 71 Mach 1 and I’d like the opportunity to explain why.(even Mustang purists think I’m nuts)
Maybe I’ll even change someone’s mind a little when it comes to the 71-73 Stangs..
Laurence, no wonder the car bug bit you hard. The sensory input of an old Jag on a nine-year old’s nervous system must have been deeply (and lastingly) affecting.
My first car was a 1962 Beetle bought when I was 14 from the neighbor across the street for $1. It had been sitting in their driveway for at least a decade when we chained it to my mom’s Taurus wagon and dragged it across the street, locked brakes & all.
Unfortunately I knew nothing about fixing cars, and my dad wanted nothing to do with the project(he did car repairs because he needed to, and didn’t understand how I could find it fun) and the car, looking back, needed a full rebuild. It hung around for a year or two before being sold for parts to make room for the rest of the family cars.
as a young boy around nine, i remember playing with one of my schoolmates and being drive home by his parents in their xj6. i remember that it had walnut drop tables in the rear seat. did they have a vanden plas version then? i was very impressed. when they traded it in a few years later for the new ’75 seville it greatly lowered my opinion of them. the funny thing is that nowadays i would love to have a 1975 seville.
Back in the 70s, there were just a few of these (maybe two) in my neighborhood, and I remember riding my bike past one all the time, and always stopping to stare and look inside. Automotive art, up there with the very best of them.
When I go home tonight, I need to dig up my old XJ brochures!
Vivid and charming little story, Laurence – thanks.
My first car was a 1984 VW Rabbit, 2-door, diesel, 4-speed stick. My dad’s cousin sold it to me for a dollar. It had sat for awhile with no gas cap, so we checked the gas tank for water before attempting to start it.
I drove it for almost 5 years, til it developed a no-start condition that we diagnosed as low compression due to worn out cylinders (the CR was a bit below spec). In retrospect the real problem was probably a bad seal in the fuel injection pump, because my brother later had a Jetta that did the same thing and that was the culprit.
It was a shame that we scrapped it. The body was in very good condition, and I had replaced the rusted out hatch with a good one that I found at the wreckers. My next vehicle was another 1984 Rabbit diesel (4-door, 5-speed stick) that turned out to be a complete POS.
I was out hunting for a car for my LeMons project this past weekend, and came across this Jag graveyard:
Oh yes. Rode in one of these XJ’s in the back seat, with the drop down trays. One of my friends had a Mark II sedan which was also quite nice with the leather and wood trim. I didn’t hear about the terrible reliability issues until much later.
Anyone have experience with the “Jagolets”, the XJs with the Chevy small-block V8 dropped in? The idea was that the Chevy motor would provide better durability, serviceability and cheaper parts to fix. But the problem though, I’ve heard, that you’ve still got the electrics which are the real malady – Lucas, the Prince of Darkness.
Let’s try this again….
Did all series 1 XJ6’s have the same size inner & outer headlights in the States? It looks a bit odd.
Yes. They went to the 5″ beams inner and outer to meet with US regulations. Something to do with the sealed beam headlamp laws on the books at the time. Eventually they got dropped, but Jaguar never changed to the larger size on the outer headlights for the US. It’s a pity, they look so much better with the larger halogen lamps.
The rear three-quarters of the car: Pure Heaven. Excellent design, with all the positives I like: long wheelbase, rear-set rear wheels, four doors, short boot, sloping, teardrop-shaped boot-lid! If only the front could lose that fake `classic’ grille treatment (no doubt imposed by management), this would be *the* template for my dream car. Even a damned inline 6!
There is an Australian movie called “The Big Steal”. The main character is given his dad’s beloved Nissan Cedric, which he promptly trades in for an XJ Series I. It all goes down hill from there. My first car was a Mitsubishi Scorpion, being in Australia before the Internet, I did not realise I was actually driving a Dodge Challenger, otherwise there would have been some badge swapping occurring …..
From a young Age These Were THE Classic Car I thought was a classy ride.
Leather in My Mother’s Maiden name, Real Wood, and… WHY Do they spend So Much Time in the Garage? OH, They are just good to Look At… Hmmm… Well My Love of Jaguars Only Goes That Far for me. Reliability DOES Mean a lot to my driving Fun.
~~
As For My first Car. It Was a 1967 Firebird V8 in Silver Blue Metallic, presented to me Xmas 1975 – eight long months before I could get my License. My Dad Had Paid $800 for it, running it before ME to ck it out in its sales spot… YES I DIG!
I drove that car up and down the Drive at least 1000 times,never hitting The cement walls on either side a single time.
That Car spent a bit of Time on The Side each month getting minor repairs to keep going .
For about ten years starting in the mid-Nineties, my mom drove a Series III Vanden Plas sedan, which looked pretty elegant in black and had the super-plush sheepskin mats. I don’t think the car ever gave us much mechanical trouble, though it was slowly being infected with rust bubbles on the cowl.
It was probably the first car I had the opportunity to drive on a fairly regular basis, and I remember it exuding a sort of stately dignity as it moved down the road, never wanting to be rushed. It was a completely different kind of driving experience than the Hondas and Acuras that my Dad had as company cars then.
I always loved the Jaguar’s twin chromed external gas caps as design objects, which offset some of the awful BMC-era interior plastics. The twin tanks came in handy one day when I was commuting to a summer internship during college. Coming onto a long uphill stretch of I-78, I suddenly felt the engine begin to stumble and lose power. I panicked for a moment before my adrenaline helped me steer the rapidly decelerating car across three lanes of 70 mph traffic and onto the shoulder.
After several failed restart attempts, I suddenly realized that the gas gauge read empty. I crossed my fingers and pushed the changeover switch. Luckily, the other tank had some fuel remaining!
“A piece of me still longs for my first car, even if it never ran.”
I guarantee you the reality would never be like the dream, believe me.
You know that old joke about the day selling your boat…..?
They’ve got that joke in England, and it’n not about boats.