Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe F-Type represents Jaguar’s return to the glory days of its sports car past. It also represents a serious level of depreciation. Let’s see if that’s an elevator ride down you’re willing to hop on.
There are two things about yesterday’s 2009 Nissan Cube that kept bothering me. The first was the choice of painting the door handles in the upper-body silver rather than the adjoining lower-body red. That just looked peculiar to me. The other thing was the odd ripple in the off-side hood seam. What the hell caused that, and why hasn’t somebody tried to bend it back? That kind of stuff drives me nuts.
Speaking of yesterday’s Cube and driving, few of you were willing to make that connection, at least not at the car’s $4,990 price tag. It just wasn’t twee enough to generate much enthusiasm for so high an asking and in the end, it fell in a 66 percent Crack Pipe loss.
Before I regale you with a bit of personal trivia I’d like to preface it by noting that none of us here at Jalopnik advocate the pursuit of any illegal activity on the part of our readers. Also, don’t try this at home, kids.
Okay, so the fastest I have ever driven in a car is an indicated 144 miles per hour. That was done very late at night in a Primrose Yellow 1966 Jaguar E-Type coupé. I actually had to guess at the speed since the needle on the Smiths speedo was bouncing back and forth between 110 and 160 for the entire short burst. It sure felt like 144 though.
Today’s 2016 Jaguar F-Type is considered by both Jaguar and the marque’s fans as the de facto lineal successor to its beloved Sixties forebearer. Just consider the connections. Both can be had in two-seat coupé and convertible body styles. Both also offer six-cylinder power (more on that later), and each is just as pretty as a picture.
Diverging from the legendary E, the F-Type carries all the conveniences of our modern age, making it an even better performer given almost every metric. There is still one area where the new car diverges from its predecessor even more significantly. That is in its enduring value.
If you’ve looked at E-Type prices of late, you’ll note that, while they’ve dipped somewhat, they aren’t exactly dropping like the beat. The F-Type, however, continues Jag’s tradition of its modern wares suffering from prodigious depreciation, in this car’s case losing over 50% of its original MSRP over the course of just four years. Of course, that just makes it more obtainable for poorer schlubs like you and me.
This ’16 F-Type comes in true Mama-Bear fashion with the supercharged three-litre V6 under its sexy bonnet. That 24-valve mill offered more power than the entry-level 2.0 four, but not as much as the hella-honkin’ supercharged 5.0 V8.
Naturally, being an engine of such balance between weight, efficiency, and power, it was discontinued in the F-Type last year. This car is an “S” which bumps the horsing-around power from the standard V6’s 340 to 380. That’s gets paired here with a ZF-sourced six-speed manual which makes this a rare duck indeed. This is a point driven home by the seller, who says of the car:
You cant get them anymore with a 6 speed! Makes for a real driving experience! Think about this, Porsche just decided to reintroduce the manual gear box again. Lets face it a sports car with an automatic is just wrong. It may be quicker and easier to drive in traffic. But it’s just not right.
You can agree to disagree with that opinion. After all, most modern automatics these days have terminator brains running them which makes them better at their job than you or I will ever be. Still, it’s fun to do some work every now and then.
The F-Type, especially in the guise of the Coupé body, is a very handsome car. The 2021 model has received a squinty-eyed makeover to bring it more visually in line with the other cars Jag isn’t selling very many of, making this earlier edition all the more appealing. This car ups that appeal with a clean title and a mere 5,300 miles on the clock.
Both bodywork and interior show the result of such lax use, appearing almost as-new in the pics. This being a modern luxury sports car there are a ton of features built-in to make you feel cosseted and fancy. You get parking sensors, blind-spot monitors, dipping door mirrors (!) and a bunch more toys you’ll probably never get around to using since you’ll be blipping the throttle to enjoy that supercharger whine.
Okay, I mentioned that this car is now somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line when it comes to its price. Let’s look into that. The seller is kind enough to include the original Monroney sticker in the ad and that shows a before taxes and fees price of $90,333.00. Say it with me, everybody… Sheee-it!
The asking today is $46,000 which, as we learned in Junior High math, equates to just about half that OG price tag. That’s after four years. In another couple of years that will likely be in the twenties.
There are good and bad aspects to this. First off, the car is much more affordable to buy and potentially to license and insure. It also comes with two and a half more years on the factory warranty so you’ve got that going for you. On the downside, you are going to lose your investment in this car unless you plan on keeping it for 30 years, which you’re unlikely to be wanting to do.
Okay, now’s the time to weigh all those aspects and come up with a vote on whether this Jag is worth that $46,000 asking. What do you think, could it command that cache of cash? Or, is its depreciation just weighing it down… and down… and down…?
You decide!
Portland, OR Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to RevUnlimiter for the hookup!
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