This past Saturday, I made a trip to the Crazy Ray's auto salvage facility in Elkridge, MD off of Route 1, to stroll around and see what I could find. There was a fairly complete '98 vintage XJ8 sedan, an XJ6 sedan, and what blew me away, sitting off to the side way back in the back of the foreign cars area, a late 50's or possibly early 60's Jaguar Mark sedan (oval front grill, sloping back towards windshield, not upright grill)!

The sedan is pretty rusty, and the interior is so decayed that there's not much left to salvage, save for the steering wheel, turn signal indicator and a couple of dashboard controls. All the interior woodwork is rotted, as are all the seats.

Under the hood (which is gone) sits the engine, less it's aluminum valve covers, carburetors and some other ancilliary items. The aluminum head is still there, as are the camshafts and the rest of the engine's lower end. The transmission is gone, but the steering box, brake master and clutch master, and the brake, clutch and accelerator pedals are still in place, and look to be salvageable. The blower box and blower motor are still intact, and look to be in decent condition, save for a little surface rust. The steel wheels are still on the car, and I'll assume so are the brakes.

All the door glass is intact, as is the chrome trimwork surrounding each window on the doors. The front and rear windshields are gone. All four chrome outside door handles are intact, as is the shine-down rear trunk light. Several of the inner window cranks and door release handles are still intact. The front bumper and one over-rider are still attached, and the bumper looks to be in really decent condition. The foglight grills are still on the body, but they are showing the effects of oxidation and corrosion.

I can't imagine you'll come across too many of these models sitting in a salvage yard, and if you need any of the parts I've described, you might want to get over to Crazy Ray's and snag these before they get around to crushing what's left of this once magnificent Jaguar.

 

I wish I could start a post with a line like that.
Graham

 

M

 

Makes me ill, to read this!

 

If there's any good that can come of this, it would be for someone to rescue anything that's still salvageable, and get those parts back into circulation to help another of these beautiful cars avoid a similar fate.