Roadkill’s “Draguar” 1974 Jaguar XJ12 has come a long way from when the guys dropped an even thousand dollars for it in an airport parking lot a few years back The V0rtec small block that was residing in the car didn’t take to kindly to having a Weiand lung bolted on the top, and when Freiburger and Finnegan proceeded to beat on it, the engine went into full meltdown mode. Whoops…well, those things happen. But in their latest video, where they cut former touring car driver and all-around wheelman wizard Randy Pobst loose with the new and improved British barge, you see the Draguar doing space-shuttle-launch style burnouts, with the back tires in a full-on inferno. It is a nice change of pace from the overheating and dying form, but what all got changed in order to turn the XJ12 into something with actual power? The answer came in the form of a 383ci Chevrolet block from BluePrint Engines. It’s rated at 600 horsepower, but add Finnegan, a Weiand blower, and a dyno, and all bets are off. Here’s the secret to the Draguar’s newfound ferocity, and probably the reason that the engine doesn’t have a warranty anymore….
Did he say “Ford short block”?
I love this car so much.
It’s one of their top-two hater-riling rigs out there, and it’s just so much fun to listen to their collective cries of “foul! foul!”
There’s one allegedly British dude that just will not let go that they should not have put a small-block Chevy mill in this thing. He keeps insisting that it would’ve been cheaper to rebuild the stock V12. I don’t think he sees that this was probably a parter; I think someone saw all the rust and rot in the chassis and pulled the drivetrain for a project, and the guys at White Flag saw the body and crammed whatever they had into it and got it running.
Jag V12s are sooo unreliable… just a pain. There was a gentleman putting one in an MGB, detailed in a long build thread. He spent a long time trying to make the engine reliable but eventually had to admit defeat and decided on a domestic small block. I think he chose a Ford 302.