We’re always curious to see sellers of interesting and/or desirable cars make the minimum effort to move a vehicle along. Sometimes, there’s immediate judgement – “Well, I guess they don’t actually want to sell it” – and other times, especially when using a resource like Marketplace, I understand that they want to weed out the tire kickers. The people who actually want something badly enough will make the effort. I suppose in the case of a V12-powered Jaguar E-Type coupe that’s been hidden away for over three decades, you’ll roll the dice and see who is committed to the purchase. Check out this slumbering big cat listed here on Facebook Marketplace in Kensington, MD.
I recently had the good fortune of selling one of my vehicles to someone who was committed to the purchase. It was a gratifying experience. After spending hours on the phone with people who clearly just wanted to chat, I remembered that serious buyers always ask the right questions and come armed with a plan. This gentleman was flying in from Atlanta and had an itinerary mapped out that included a friend with a flatbed in the event things didn’t work out. The seller of this Jaguar is likely waiting for the same kind of buyer who knows what they’re looking at and is willing to work out the details to remove it from this dusty garage and get it onto a trailer.
There’s one red flag, however, and that’s the lack of an asking price. To me, this is where you begin to lose faith that someone actually wants to sell a car. Looking at recent sale prices, it’s pretty black-and-white: project-grade 2+2 E-Types with a 4-speed and the V12 generally sell for $30,000 or thereabouts. The automatic obviously gets less love from buyers. In turnkey form, expect to pay around $50,000 for a 4-speed, and I don’t see much difference between coupe or roadster. For the seller, an automatic V12 project in this state of decay is likely under $20,000. If I had to guess, that strikes him or her as too low, especially since it has apparently been in the same family for 45 years. That long-term ownership can sometimes distort the real-world value of a car that’s become a family heirloom.
It’s hard to say whether there’s any significant rot to deal with, but regardless, the paint hasn’t exactly been well-preserved. The seller will need to bring this Jaguar out into the light if potential buyers want to make a more compelling offer. The 5.3L V12 makes a healthy 314 horsepower and 349 lb-ft of torque and is still a wonderful grand tourer by today’s standards. Whether the seller’s car will ever fire off once again is a mystery, but without a firm price or better photos, it may be stuck here for another few years.
It needs a six. The 12s are awful in most every way. If it was a six, it would not be here. Get it for a song. Yank the 12, put it in the corner and re engine it with almost anything else, all would be good choices. A SBC toi a slant six, anything but the English 12
How can someone leave a car like this, in a space like this, in a condition like this and awful pictures like this………..it certainly tells a lot about the owner ! and….. he probably is asking $75K!
Kinda lazy way to sell it, but if they had it for 35 years, who knows, they could be in their 70s or 80s, and trying to downsize. On a similar note, I’ve seen huge mansion type houses, built in the 1870s, in the Gainesville area just left for decades to the elements, with leaking roofs, and you wonder, why?
Looks pretty much dry and non-rusty, which is a decent start.
Shame about the V-12 / 2 + 2 part of it, but a six and a manual box shouldn’t be too hard to find (rotten mk2 or XJ6).
Bit on the dear side.