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In August of last year, I did a write-up on this 1950 Jaguar XK120 for sale on Craigslist in Kingston, New York. This forlorn but solid Jaguar was a car that the ad writer frequently saw around Kingston growing up. Now that the original owner has passed on, they are trying to find a home for the car and funds to assist the widow. It seems that the search for a new owner is still on. The biggest problem is that the vehicle has been partially disassembled and sits under an open-walled shed. While the asking price has been lowered from a lofty $42,500 to a slightly more reasonable $37,500, the car is still on the market. It also seems that scammers and ne’er-do-wells have aggravated them to the point the ad emphatically states cash only as a medium of exchange. A Jaguar XK120 is a desirable car for sure. What is uncertain is exactly what number regarding price will get this car sold and on the road to rehabilitation. Do you have any idea what would be fair in this situation? What advice would you give the sellers at this point? Thanks to Gunter K. for bringing this Jaguar back to our attention!
The sale of a classic car after a death is difficult even under the best circ*mstances. Our family went through this with the passing of my grandfather. He owned two very desirable antique cars and was active in a few of the local clubs. It wasn’t long, three days after the funeral to be exact, before the calls started coming in. A few were very polite and were simply calls to express interest if the cars were ever to be put on the market. Others were less pleasant and more, shall we say, pushy. We heard back that there had been many discussions as my grandfather’s health declined and a feeding frenzy of sorts kicked off with his passing. Thankfully there was no need to sell the cars at that time, and both are now in my possession. The situation still left a bad taste in our mouths, especially considering a few of the more insistent were considered friends by my grandfather.
I am sure all of you have similar stories. While Miss Manners has never laid out the proper protocol for such events, patience and kindness will go a long way toward earning you a spot in Heaven in situations like this. The writer of the ad is earning their place with this difficult sale right now. Remembered as a special car around town in the writer’s youth, there is a friendship between the writer and the widow. In today’s dark world of cons, hustles, and outright theft, aiding a widow in need is truly a noble act. Helping a special car find a proper home is a great thing as well.
Despite the effort, this Jaguar has not found its forever home yet. We are told that the car was partially disassembled in the early 1980s. This was presumably for a restoration that never happened. The writer believes that “95%+” of the parts are there. They have also included multiple pictures of parts in bins and in various places in and around the car. Much of what we see is in original, yet somewhat weathered condition. The body shows no sign of anything other than surface rust and all of the panels are straight. None of the other parts look to be too difficult to restore aside from the gauges. Four decades of being stored outdoors has likely not been kind to their internal workings.
You can probably count on an engine rebuild at this point. That will probably cost a fair amount once you find a machine shop that specializes in Jaguars. The inline-six you see above was radically advanced for its time, and I hope one of our readers who knows a bit about these cars can chime in on what a rebuild will cost. Once you get past the engine costs, there is nothing that stands out as too difficult to do for a dedicated hobbyist.
The quandary here is that the Craigslist ad and the asking price don’t seem to be working. There is a price point where someone will show up with a trailer, hand over some cash, and drive off with a ready-to-restore Jaguar XK120. If you were the writer of the ad who is trying to help the widow sell this car, what would your next steps be? What advice would you give on price, where to advertise, and how to close out this sale? Please share your thoughts and opinions in the comments. Perhaps your advice will get back to the writer and the widow and help them get this Jaguar sold.
