If there is one game I hate to play, it’s “Pick a car from the year you were born”. How the hell do you look through the offerings from 1983 and pick a winner? You start at the top and set your sights low, because there was a lot of “low” being sold as useable cars. Picking one car from the height of the Malaise era is pretty difficult and it’s not just “normal” cars that fall into this category…even if you went and picked a poster-car, my immediate first choice, the Ferrari 288 GTO, was still a year away, and Lamborghini’s Countach was old-hat…psychotic, yes, but old hat. Then there is this thing, the Jaguar XJ6. It’s the wrong color, but surely there are plenty of you who are now seeing a flashback that involves Tawney Kitaen twisting over the hood like a Greek oracle. I don’t get it…I liked the music video for the song when I was a kid. But let’s get past the 1980s nostalgia and take a good look at this machine…
The moment you do the right thing and remove that novelty plate, you are left with what appears to be either a well-restored example of a 1980s Jag, or the nicest survivor we’ve seen. Either way, it’s good…classic lines, green paint, stock wheels. Perfect for the small-block Chevy ruse. They fit the XJ cars like they were meant to be there, and repairing a small Chevy is a damn sight less expensive that working on a Jag engine any day of the week. The purists can put their nose to the sky all they want for what I care.
Moving from the front of the car to the back reveals a cavern that most people would call a trunk. Maybe it’s just me, but I never suspected a Jag of this era to have a trunk that could be measured out in dead bodies. Of course, you will have the good sense to wrap up the deceased before you put them into this well-appointed boot, won’t you?
Holy sheep. Can you name the last time you saw sheepskin seat covers that didn’t look like absolute garbage? This car has to be a time capsule…I haven’t seen sheepskin covers on any car in almost ten years, and over double that since I saw a set that didn’t look like an immediate and horrifying health hazard. If the rest of the cabin is any indication, the interior on this one is mint.
So, is every car from 1983 worth ignoring for the game? Not this one. I’d rock this in half a heartbeat…
eBay Link: 1983 Jaguar XJ6
A healthy SBC can fix anything .
Thats a great car,Id love to have it!
Here we go again – a mouth breathing piece of Chevy-loving pond life ruins a great classic British car. I mean – anyone who had half a brain would have least put a Ford motor in it as Ford once owned Jaguar. But that would have taken a modicum of intelligence which is something these slobbering Chevy loving morons just do not have!
While we don’t know for sure it’s a high probability it was a Jags That Run kit that made the engine fit. It’s actually a pretty common swap. I’ll agree that I’d have picked another engine, like maybe a SB Buick 350 or a MOPAR 360 or something just ’cause I like weird stuff.
Still, that ought to be a pretty nice driver.
Dan