The elegant flying buttresses of the XJS are a perfect setup for a truck bed in the back, easily accomplished in this case with the removal of the trunk lid and the installation of a bulkhead and some aluminum plates. We'd have preferred some nice teak bed boards held in place with chrome strips, but beggers can't be choosers. It's definitely a helluva lot nicer than the clapped out version we saw in Project Car Hell. Now all it needs is some llamas in the back. [Autoblog.it]

Now that the rain has finally stopped, I can get down to making the Sprite roadworthy; such is Project Car Hell when you don't have a garage. One of the showstoppers- in addition to the lack of brake function and any semblance of a wiring harness- has been the terrible steering wheel that came with the car. Any torque on the wheel makes the spokes pull out of the tape, and I don't trust JB Weld to repair it properly. While I'm sure an Austin-Healey fanatic would fire the wheel straight to a wizened old steering-wheel restorer back in England, I'd rather eat a bushel of Circus Peanuts than spend £400 on the correct wheel. Supposedly you can get Mountney hub adapters to get an aftermarket wheel on a Sprite, but that's still going to set me back close to 100 clams, or bones, or whatever you call them. No, my steering wheel budget is more like 15 bucks!


There's no way in hell that any wheel out of Detroit is going to fit my car, and the all-metric German and Japanese wheels weren't going to bolt on either. Got to be British! Casadelshawn of the Faster Farms Belvedere spotted a chrome-bumper Midget (identical to the Sprite) in a junkyard in Sacramento while I was off covering the Gator-O-Rama, but the little MG had been picked clean by the time I got back to Alameda and could make the 90-mile trek to the state capitol. Let's see, what's the only British Leyland product that's plentiful in the cheap self-service junkyards around here? That's right: the Jaguar XJ! My first target was this Series 1 XJ-6's wheel. Sadly, the splined steering shaft on this car was bigger than the one on the Sprite.


But what's this a few cars down in the same yard? Why, it's a 1974 XJ12, which (according to some very headache-inducing online research) used a different wheel than its downscale six-banger sibling. Sure enough, the V12 Jag steering wheel is a direct replacement for the little Sprite's, right down to the rim diameter! The horn button doesn't quite work- a bit of corrosion in the contacts, which didn't really come as a surprise- but I'll sort that out later. Next step: a wiring harness that allows me to fire up the engine without twisting wires together!

There are ordinary Project Car Hell vehicles, and then there are the heavyweights. The projects that, in the words of the prophet John in Revelations 20:10, will have you "thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever." In fact, the Book Of Revelations is the only shop manual you'll need with a PCH Heavyweight, and quite a bit of it is devoted to the V12-equipped Malaise Era Jaguar. In '82, you could buy a new XJ-S in the USA for $32,100 (about 72 grand today), but some pollutin' folks decided they wanted the 299-horsepower UK-market engine instead of the emissions-friendly 262-horse unit and imported their own. And, of course, those buyers headed right to the DMV, where Franz Kafka himself was waiting for them behind the counter. Fast-forward 25 years, and we find this '82 (go here if the ad disappears), which has a steering wheel on the left side and a price tag of just $695. Whoa, that's just over $50 per cylinder! Only 37,000 miles on the clock, never titled in the USA… is that the deal of the century or what? In a sentence that pretty much sums up Malaise Jag ownership, the seller states that he or she "Had running once but not run in the past few years." Perhaps the Prince Of Darkness fuel injection (PODFI) system is a contributing factor to the non-runningness, but you'll sort that out. Thanks to Delsysdsoftware for the tip!

We never get tired of V12s here, and we also never get tired of the Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9. It's got a big hairy V8, it's got a Citroënesque hydropneumatic suspension, and it's got Top Mob Boss Grade luxury. In 1977, you'd have spent $39,377 for one. In 2008 dollars, that's about $141,000… but some folks don't understand the real value of these machines, which is why depreciation has gnawed away an astonishing 99.7% of the inflation-adjusted value of this 1977 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 (go here if the ad disappears). That's got to be some sort of record, and you can be the beneficiary of this madness. Fainthearted types might think the seller's statement "this was a parts car i didnt use very many parts off of" is on the disquieting side, but the engine is (allegedly) good! We'll admit the transmission is bad, but the junkyards are full of V8 Benzes, and maybe the transmission out of a non-6.9 will bolt right up and not explode immediately. As for the suspension, how hard could it be? Hey, you can probably get this car for less than 400 bucks; in fact, "whatever you have to get it out of my yard" will take it away.

The Jaguar XJ-S may well be the quintessential Project Car Hell vehicle. It sold for gigabucks, packs a V12 under the hood, looks gorgeous, you can get one cheap, and... Lucas Electrics! We had one beckoning to you from the fiery gates to Project Car Hell not long ago, but the lure of the XJ-S is just impossible to resist and we have no choice but to return to our V12-powered friend. Feds found this '79 Jaguar XJ-S with a somewhat steep asking price of $3,500 Canadian, but we're pretty sure that price is highly negotiable. As Feds says, "Regardless of how good or bad the car is, you can't ignore the fact that it is dirt(bag) cheap...a British car that very likely smells of du Maurier's and Labatt's 50." We don't learn much about the car from the seller's description, though "Some minor oil leaks and car will need a paint job soon" seems about par for the XJ-S course. Does it run? Is there rust? Electrical gremlins? Wait, no need to even ask that last question!

When you're trying to sell a couple of rusty heaps vintage machines built during an era when craftsmen were busting scab heads on the picket line took pride in their work, what's the best approach to photographing those cars? That's right- use the "sepia" option in your photo-editing software! If not for the newer vehicles visible in the background on one of the shots, you'd think you were looking at 60-year-old photos... of prematurely aged cars. The seller here doesn't find it necessary to provide any description of the cars for sale, and that includes such inconsequential information as year, make, and model. It appears that you can purchase a 1940 Plymouth and a Dodge of the same era for two grand Canadian. Mechanical condition? We can't tell you. Rust? Sure looks that way! But the Dodges and Plymouths of that era share lots of parts- you should be able to make one nice runner out of the pair, powered by a 440 pulled from the first New Yorker you find at the junkyard. As Feds so eloquently puts it: "Based on the excellent copy, I suspect Sophia is trying to sell these cars out from under the nose of her no-good-nik common-law husband."

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When you're showing up at the track with your $500 race car, four cylinders under the hood is ho-hum. Six is a little better, and eight will get you some respect. But when you pop the bonnet and reveal a V-12 beneath, the resulting shocked silence in the pits will be gratifying indeed. Now, there's no way in hell you'll ever get a German V12 machine for under $500 (well, no way that will convince the LeMons judges, at any rate), but folks have this completely justified totally irrational fear of the V12-equipped Jaguar XJ-S... and that means it's deal time! Say, a deal such as this 1991 Jaguar XJ-S (go here if the ad disappears) with an asking price of $500 (which smells like an actual price of more like $300, or some "game room things"). It comes with two V12s, so you have to figure you can make one runner, right? Hell yes! Then you're sure to be able to sell off plenty of unneeded parts on eBay (hey, if I can sell $350 worth of parts off an '84 Volvo, anything is possible) after you've gutted the half-ton of leather and wood from the car. Now, since it's a '91 you'll need to deal with some of the Lucas electrics if you want the engine ECU to function, but maybe all those Prince of Darkness jokes have no foundation in real experience! Get a rollcage in it, put some Cherry Bombs on that sweet-sounding V12, and get ready to leave those peasants in their lesser cars in your dust at the race!

Roaring onto the track in a V12 Jag would get you some respect, all right, but you wouldn't appear to be a total madman with that choice. Sure, your team would look like the greatest mechanics who ever lived if your Jag managed to finish 25 laps under its own power, but where's the Lunatic Factor? That's why you need to consider a car with a 5/95 weight distribution, primitive suspension, and a flimsy fiberglass body. Something, for example, such as this VW-based dune buggy with Olds Toronado transaxle assembly (go here if the ad disappears), which has an asking price of only $450 (or a "NEW OR NEWER HIGHER END LAPTOP"). It doesn't come with the 455 engine, but that's no problem. You see, that transmission has the BOP bolt pattern, which means a huge range of Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac V8s- all available in $50 junker cars in a location near you- may be bolted right in. Oh, and did we mention that Cadillac V8s also used the BOP pattern? No? That means the 500-cube V8 out of the Eldorado will bolt right onto this baby! Just imagine it, if you can: a spindly VW dune buggy with a five hundred cubic inch engine hanging off the back! You might have some oversteer problems at the race, not to mention interesting handling characteristics when you pull the front wheels off the ground under hard acceleration, but you'll have the advantage of a wide berth from all the other drivers on the track. We recommend a really good roll cage, and even better life insurance!

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Say what you will about Jaguars, but any car with a freakin' V12 is inherently cool. I've been seeing the occasional Jag 12 in the junkyard lately, and I'm always awestruck at how ridiculously huge that engine is in person. Imagine how much fun that monster engine will be as you're trying to coax some life into this '76 XJ-S! And- can you believe it?- the price is a stunning five hundred bucks! The seller claims not to have even attempted to start the engine (translation: spun bearings and/or burned valves), but the glass is all good! The interior, however, is described as "brittle," by which we assume any surface you touch will crumble like pie crust beneath your fingers. And, dang it, there's some body rust. And every component that has ever touched gasoline is bad. But come on- the toll at the gates to Project Car Hell is low, and the glory of driving this beautiful car with a Vee-Goddamn-Twelve (preferably bellowing through straight pipes) might someday be yours!

The 70s Jag XJs are pretty and all, but you might want to consider getting something that'll make you feel like a crooked S&L owner squandering his ill-gotten gains. Yes, those feathered-hair 80s babes will be on this '87 XJ-S like ants on candy! Definitely worth spending an extra $500 over the '76, we say! Sure, it has a fuel injection system made by The Prince of Darkness himself, and simply changing the spark plugs- which you'll need to do frequently- will take weeks of knuckle-shattering labor. And if you're the glass-half-empty sort, you might scowl at the seller's statement that it "will start and ideal but the engine won't rev." The interior is rough and the paint is ugly, but it will "smoothly go into gear" and it has a new distributor cap, so there ya go!

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We make no bones about thinking the XJS is one of the most beautiful cars of the 1970s. We've loved them since we first saw one as a very small Jalop. Los Angeles, which may be the used-Jag world headquarters is rife with examples that go for very, very little money. So why have we never indulged? Because we are absolutely frightened by the frequency with which things go wrong. Captain Slow takes a restored, improved model for a ride to Liverpool and comes away mightily impressed. We're gonna go check craigslist now. – Davey G. Johnson

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If it's Monday, it must be Hecklerspray's Rubbish Cars We Love. This week, the boys share our affections for a car that's second only to the XJ40 in Jaguar's Hall of Deep, Personal Humiliation, the XJS. We first laid eyes on the XJ at the '79 New York Auto show, and we were instantly enraptured — an E-Type for the our generation, we imagined. While history would pronounce us somewhat misled, the XJ is no less lovable for its suckiness. In fact, it's probably more lovable, in the way a kindly, tottering dolt who keeps stepping on his glasses would be to certain members of the opposite sex.

Rubbish Cars We Love: XJS A Big Pussy of a Car [Hecklerspray]

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