Lister XJ-S Le Mans at Silverstone Auctions

[AllezWasps]

Bit of advice chaps,

Said car is up for sale at the Silverstone Classic Auction this Saturday (see the classified's under Lister- can't put a link in on the system I'm using).

An awful lot of car for the estimated price.

Is the estimate of 27-32k reasonable?

Has anyone on here had any experiences of 'living' with the Lister XJ-S's. I'm specifically looking at service costs etc, what to budget for per year maintenance wise (based on a couple of thousand miles per year driving max). Is anything mechanical standard (i.e Jaguar)? and if there are problems would Jaguar touch it or would it have to be a specialist?

I'm well used to spending money on keeping sports cars on the road as I run two TVR's but is the Lister XJS a whole different ball game?

[V12 Migaloo]

Peter Hugo at WINSPEED had one of these and KWE have just finished restoring one, if that's of any help.

[XJ Flyer]

Many of the main components on a Lister like engine and transmission will be so far away from standard that Jaguar won't stock parts for them bearing in mind that even the old Jaguar factory supplied 6 litre XJRS is now difficult to find parts for with it's parts stock being virtually deleted.While even the standard XJS is now too old for the Jaguar main agent service system to be involved with them.With these cars even using Jaguar parts it's a case of using the specialists to carry out work which can't be done at home.However it's surprising just how many of those jobs can be done on a DIY basis at home including suspension rebuilds and major component changes like engines and transmissions and using the Jaguar classic parts scheme for many parts and specialist help where required in the case of those parts which need specialist setting up such as when fitting new rear hub/suspension bearings etc.

While in the case of specialist non standard parts,like maintenance jobs,you'll be reliant on specialists,like Rob Beere and AJ6 etc,who are actually great at what they do.However the upside is that a non standard Jaguar is a lot better than a standard one in all respects like handling and performance and it's worth all the trouble in having to seek out the right people for the job.However that needs to be factored into the purchase price to leave sufficient money left over to maintain the thing when you've bought it.

Which in most cases is one of the advantages on going for the recent classic Jags in that they're 'usually' not expensive to buy and can be made to go very quicly for a reasonable amount of money.In the case of that type of money being asked the fact is that you could probably build something that's just as quick if not quicker using the same specialists using new parts than you'd need to spend just to purchase that example of what is just a heavily modified XJS remembering that you're starting in that case with probably by now well used major components not new ones.

Edited by XJ Flyer on Tuesday 23 July 15:06

Edited by XJ Flyer on Tuesday 23 July 15:22

[AllezWasps]

Thanks for the responses chaps.....certainly food for thought.