I believe 90% of XK/XKR owners dont come to this site.
The CEO of the company that owns this site (I know him) drove a XKR for a long time- I never saw him here. And there are dozens of Xks around me, no one here.
so I think its like church, we see them when something goes wrong and they need divine intervention.

 

The economics of older car ownership are always hard to work out. Complicated, high end cars cost a lot to fix, in parts cost, and "expert" labor. The residual resale value of the vehicle is dropping so fast in the first ten years of ownership that it will appear that ANY expenditure is too extravagant. The only way to derive any benefit from repairs is to keep that vehicle for a long time and get the use out of the car. How many times have we put a new set of tires on a car, filled the tank on a Saturday morning, and ended up trading the car that afternoon? You didn't get the benefit of any increased trade in on that!

One benefits of an older car is that it will reach that point will have been completely paid off. (Or you may have just paid cash for it), so it not costing you a car payment every month. If you have another car, you can slow down and think about your alternatives before you can commit yourself to any course of action. This is also how those barn finds start out. Initial inaction can lead to further inaction, then life gets in the way,etc. and no action is taken, for years, and then your heirs are pulling the old buggy out of the barn on American Pickers!

It is very hard for me to imagine the limitations of only being able to have only one car. I know that there are lots of folks that live in circumstances that only allow for off street parking of only one, or maybe two cars, like in an apartment, condo, or townhouse. When my Brother lived in a nice condo in San Francisco, he was entitled to one parking space. There were only three guest parking spaces for the entire multi level structure! Lot's of townhouses have a single or double car garage but don't have a private driveway.

Luckily I live in typical West Coast, big city, suburban development. I've got a two car (when empty !) garage, the two car driveway, two spaces in front at the curb, and even a ten foot wide side yard, accessible from the driveway, That's where the XJS is hiding out, again). I have that luxury of parking a car and doing nothing, while I decide what to do. I still envy those guys out in the country with a couple of acres to park their junk.

My Sister in Law has a early 2000s, BMW 5 series. It's a real nice looking car. She bought it used, and her husband and her had fixed the little things, touched the paint, and brought it up to a nice level. She recently found out that it needs some hoses and seals changed as well as some other things, that will run her a bit over three grand to have done. She figures now, that enough is enough, and she gets it fixed, and is going to dump it! For whatever she can get for it. If that's the case, why not just sell it without the repairs, as is, as a project car? I doubt that it would be worth more than three grand in perfect shape, sell it for a grand, and save the expenditure on the repair. Or donate to one of those charities for the tax deduction.

Sometimes though, you do have to spend some money to cut your losses. I had a '56 Cadillac that I had for a few years. Fixed it up, got it into good driving shape. I decided to sell it and wouldn't you know it, the transmission gives out just after I turned down the first guys's offer. I relisted it at a much lower price. Wow. There was just NO interest in the thing now. I would have to almost give the thing away. Well it's a long story, but I finally found a good rebuilder in So Cal, (Cadillac KIng, Pacoima Ca.) and swapped in a re- manufactured transmission. Long story short I finally managed to break even when I sold it, about the only time!





The moral of this post is, if you have the opportunity, slow down, do a thorough diagnosis, evaluate the alternatives, and choose the best course of action.

I know that this is a long post, but Friday morning is when I update my blog, so I was in an expansive mood. If you enjoyed my writing, click over to my site and take a look, it can get awful lonely on the interenet
Not the same car, but the same color and condition.

 

Taxes are a huge disincentive for me.
If you buy a $100k car every 3 years, you pay $30,000 in just taxes over 9 years.
You can easily buy a $30k jaguar today that will last you 9 years- i.e free from the tax point alone.

Then there is familiarity, the devil you know is infinitely better than the new one you will discover.

That's why I believe buying the car you will love to own even 15 years down the road will be the cheapest car you can buy. All cars I have owned have been cars you want to keep for 20+ years. My Toyota is 40 years old this year....and its only gone up in value.

The XK is timeless, especially compared to something like the XF, XE, FPace, all of which actually cost twice as much in the big picture and give half as much joy.

 

Agreed,but I wish the depreciation rate for our 2010 XK Coupes will finally slow down. I purchased mine 3 years ago and paid half of MSRP in 2010. However I have still lost well over 10,000 for a used car! But I do love the car and with 9,000 miles I can keep it for a long time and still enjoy it even if it becomes worthless! lol

 

Fret not depreciation, we will take far more from these cars than they will us.

True depreciation is losing 10 years driving a bmw/audi sedan only to realize you were nothing more than a posh Uber driver. Then seeing them by the hundred on the 'Buy Here-Pay Here' car lots, reminding us forever what real depreciation looks like. Real depreciation when a punk still in high school, pulls up next to you at the traffic light in the same car as yours, which he has hand painted green and wants to race or worse thinks he can befriend you.

We will never have that problem. This car will always be the privilege of those who have taste. That is priceless.

 

I've seen early X100 coupes for $3k. In fact some of the ones I saw on Craigslist were at buy here pay here traps.

 

Is that like a bear trap?

 

I have never seen a well designed, well built, 500hp car go down in value.
I have seen many cars take decades for the masses to appreciate them

 

Maybe our favorite cars are starting to be appreciated?
Autotrader, entire USA, only five available 2010-2011, and the prices are higher than they were a couple years ago;

 

Yep, all of the early XKR's I looked at were priced around $22k XK's were $14k and up. Only paying $10.5k for mine keeps the pain of fixing stuff from getting too out of hand.

 

And that's in a down market.

If this car was in a single movie it would have been hugely popular. Whose silly idea was it to put Bond in a 7series or the gutless wonder the Z3. Both of which are junk even by junk collectors standard.

What really happened with the XK was Ashton Martin. Jaguar and Ian Cullam borrowed all the best features of the styling and the spotlight from the XK and gave it to one of the (then) ugliest cars on the road the Aston Martin and turned that company around.

Sure they put Bond back in an Ashton, but it was really a Jag, all while purposely downplaying the XKR- which was ultimately a better car but it was too late by then. A friend of mine raced me recently in his Ashton and was shocked how the XKR blew his doors off.

I dont have to have something that is popular, I enjoy the undervalued appeal of the XKR, as if its my own little secret treasure.

 

This video underscores Jaguar's mistake/sacrifice
Note Jaguar categorically improved everything Jeremy complained about...but a day too late. He never reviewed the new 5.0 XKR
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2tscik

 

I've had this video saved for at least a few years now!

 

Great video.
I love this line: "It is the easiest car in the world to drive if you're a lunatic"

 

The thing that hurt our car the most was, by the time they perfected our car and in my opinion, made the best 'Jaguar' ever made; Ian Callum decided that the biggest problem with Jaguar was that it was living in the shadow of the Etype. Indeed our car was made to be the ultimate Etype and carried all its styling.

So they put their shoulders behind promoting the Ftype and almost nothing was ever done for our car. Not even submitted for review, because it would compete and they were right. While Jeremy liked the Fype, the complaints he had about it were ironically solved by our 5l XKR.

 

Dont try this in a First World country