As we all know by now, Facebook Marketplace has become a potential treasure trove of project cars and trucks. If the barrier of listing on craigslist proved too challenging for some sellers, Facebook does make it ridiculously easy to get something listed, so I have a feeling we’re seeing more vehicles come to light than in prior years. This 1957 Jaguar MKVIII sedan is listed here on Facebook Marketplace with very little information, and has all the markings of being found a on piece of property that the seller recently inherited or bought.
This listing is near Baltimore, and if this were posted a few years prior, I can almost guarantee it would have ended up in Crazy Ray’s salvage yard. This series of pick and pull yards had a tendency to grab any interesting vehicles that my brother and I would surmise came from the diplomat class in D.C.: weird foreign models not sold in the states and clearly left behind when a political appointee returned to their home country. With right-hand drive steering and European license plates still attached, this is clearly a gray market Jaguar.
The automatic badge is interesting; I can recall seeing this on economy cars for which an automatic would represent a significant luxury, but it’s surprising to see it on a car that one would assume came with an automatic as pretty much standard equipment. However, this is a bit of a falsehood, and it serves as a reminder that practically every make and model was once equipped with a manual transmission unless otherwise specified by the first owner. It’s likely nothing short of a miracle that these badges have survived.
The Jaguar has clearly been abandoned for some time, and since the background of the photos doesn’t suggest that it’s currently in a junkyard, one would have to guess this Jaguar was simply another piece of discarded trash on a messy property. The battered body panels and grill also indicate it hasn’t exactly been cherished while retired from the roads, and values certainly aren’t very high for a rough project like this. Based on the listing, however, I bet the seller would let it go far cheaper than the current asking price.
ES is a Dundee number.
You will need a lot money in order to get this car back on the road. Going to need a total ground up restoration.
The little forest creatures have grabbed a lot of the upolstery.
Is it a v12?
Just made what I consider a fair offer. I’m looking for some lawn art. Seriously.
dohc 6
The comment about automatics doesn’t apply to European cars of the 50s, though probsnly the majority of Jag MKVII sold were automatics. Now the market prefers manuals.
No futire other than parts car for this one. These are very fine cars ( I would prefer over a RR/BENTLEY of the time) but do not bring a high price. $40000 will probably buy the best.
I will never take a Jag over a Bentley or Rolls-Royce. Having owned a number of both, the Jag was built down to a price, the Bentley and Rolls-Royce are built up to a standard. Beneath the veneer, the difference in quality is amazing. I will drive my 1948 Bentley anywhere in the country, a Jaguar I will drive no further than I care to walk back from!
Automatic in this would be a DG250. Yes the same DG250 as in a 49 Studebaker. Ain’t it a small world….
Having owned 2 of these Behemoth cats I can tell you that that they are 6 cylinders, usually 4.2, as the 3.8 would barely move them. The V!2 was played with in the 50s and 60s
but not in production for sale until 70 or 71 and could be quite nightmarish in all ways, for beyond the prince of darkness, , as for the automatic, this was a choice for you then, many of these Over fed Kittys, were stick, as were both of mine, I still have a few parts if anyone id interested.
West of Ogden, Utah heading toward the lake all you see in yards are abandoned Jags from MKVII to Mark 10`s, 420`s`and 420G`s.
Looks like something I would put out in the back 40 to hang targets on
I owned a ’57 back in ’64. It was a great ride until the engine blew up. The interior was perfect. Got a lot of good comments even back then.
Everything’s for sale, now days.
And not selling much. People want to look, but will not pay or expect it for free.
That is like most things today. Everyone wants it for free.
I was speaking to a friend in canada who had to replace their furnace.
Instaled $6,200 or they could rent it for 15 years at $217/month. thats over $39,000. They were told most people rent, that is one of the reasons people are broke.
There is one nice looking Lucas Flamethrower lamp on the front bumper..
I can’t phantom the money it wound take to restore this thing.
It may well be not worth restoring, but
in the hands of a capable street rodder, this old Jag could be one hell of a street rod that would turn heads
wherever it went. I could see this old gal running a 3800 GM V-6 with a 700R4 tranny for power, and ditch the Lucas electrics–they’re no good anyway. Here’s where a universal wiring harness would work wonders here. Face it folks, the British couldn’t build a reliable car if their lives depended on it. That’s why you use American parts to bring these cars back from the dead. And yes Al, I did
get one of these for free one time. A
of Dad’s owned a car lot and wanted
just wanted it gone. It was a late ’50s
early ’60s 4-door that had been the victim of an electrical fire that took out everything from the dashboard forward. First thing I did was to wire the car to American specs for safety’s sake. Next came a Chevy 350 and T350 tranny from a smacked ’70 Impala sedan. I used those because
they were cheaper than trying to get
OEM stuff that just wasn’t available in
the Midwest back then. (’71). I kept the Jag suspension after seeing that
street rodders were using it to make their American Fords ride more comfortably than they did before. I didn’t have to do much to the interior
as it was in really nice shape save for the dashboard that had been destroyed by the fire. After all the heavy work was done, I had the car resprayed in the original blue and the chrome trim replated by a friend of my BIL who worked in the plating department over at Eureka Williams there in Bloomington. A lot of beer, time, and money went into that car but my investment was rewarded when a local doctor paid me $4K for it
in early ’72. And yes, it’s still in use today. My sister said she had seen someone driving it about a month ago. Just goes to show what a little
imagination can do.