Are Jaguar "E" types overpriced?
Discussion
You can honk on about reasons and why you might not like an E and why they're too dear etc etc until the cows come home but at the end of the day there's only one thing that sets the prices they command today and that is Supply and Demand Simple
And in 73 a V12 Roadster was £3500 not 5
And in 73 a V12 Roadster was £3500 not 5
Yertis said:
Vitesse 2 litre Mark 2 is quite a handy little thing IMO. Obviously not in the same ball-park as the E-type in any way. OTOH you could drive it without being terrified about anything happening to it or devaluing it (if that’s the way your priorities lie).
I used to look after one 30 years ago. It was an appalling heap of s
t even then. You'd drive this sorry heap, and then a 1300 Alfa Duetto of the same era...........Dr Jekyll said:
For the last 25 years, as long as I've been in a position to theoretically afford a 'classic', a good series 1 E Type has been about 2 years of my salary. Except now my salary seems to be lagging behind the E Type index, it's difficult not to get paranoid.
You must have been poorly paid then, because I just missed chassis #21 roadster which, after a £60,000 restoration (excluding the cost of the donor) by Southern Classics sold in 1992 for £21,000 at auction. Now owned by Jaguar strangely enough.iSore said:
I used to look after one 30 years ago. It was an appalling heap of st even then. You'd drive this sorry heap, and then a 1300 Alfa Duetto of the same era...........
A friend used to have use of his fathers Herald, it was a great town car, it used to do u-turns in roads a London Taxi used to need to make 5 point turns in. Can't think of anything with a smaller turning circle. Can you?t even then. You'd drive this sorry heap, and then a 1300 Alfa Duetto of the same era...........a8hex said:
Can't think of anything with a smaller turning circle. Can you?
Well...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5R368iX7iI
iSore said:
Yertis said:
Vitesse 2 litre Mark 2 is quite a handy little thing IMO. Obviously not in the same ball-park as the E-type in any way. OTOH you could drive it without being terrified about anything happening to it or devaluing it (if that’s the way your priorities lie).
I used to look after one 30 years ago. It was an appalling heap of st even then. You'd drive this sorry heap, and then a 1300 Alfa Duetto of the same era...........t' but it's certainly the worst of the small-chassis Triumphs, which I don't rate particularly highly in any case. It combines the boxy looks and floppy body of the Herald with the nasty gearbox and over-taxed rear suspension of the GT6. A standard Herald is perfectly pleasant to drive in a low-key Aunty-Mabel-On-A-Sunday sort of way while the GT6 looks infinitely better and feels much tighter and more direct to drive. Still a fairly dire bit of engineering but it's certainly exciting and you can't accuse Triumph of not getting value for money out of the Herald platform. As for E-types - can you say they're overpriced when they still sell fairly readily even that the big numbers they command now? But, speaking personally, I don't think they're worth the premium. I'd take a Series 1 XJ6 or XJ12 or an XJC over an E-type any day (whoever said that the XJ was the one that was massively underpriced was spot on - even with the recent rise in prices a Series 1 XJ is not worth what I feel they should be given how good and how significant they are). I'd take a Big Healey or a Datsun 240Z over the E-type, to be honest. Most of the hype seems to be about the looks, which I've never quite understood. Even the early 'pretty' ones don't do it for me - all the proportions are wrong - bonnet line too low and symmetrical, windscreen too vertical, glasshouse too tall, track not wide enough for the body. The only good-looking E-type is the Low Drag Coupe because it has a roofline and track in proportion to the rest of it.
lowdrag said:
The advert was from the magazine "The Motor" of the 26th December 1962. Frankly, most of this thread is wishful thinking about buying cars when one should have compared to not being able to now. No one has mentioned their salary when they should have bought as a percentage of the then purchase price. Mine was 20%. When I bought my E-type I was considered stupid. A tatty old E-type for "that much?" People asked me "what'll it do mister" and now "what's it worf mister". My car is mine and will only be sold after my demise. It is not an investment, it is MY car, something I have driven over 125,000 miles and which has more memories than I care to remember.
So get off your high horses. Cars are not chattels; they are things to be cherished and adored, not investments.If yours are investments, well, I hope the market crashes. I went through this in 1991 and I don't care; my car dropped from £75,000 to £20,000. My car is still my car and I'll drive it, as I did today.
And as regards what Jaguar NE said - get real! I rebuilt my car in 1987 and have, as said above done many a mile since, through wind and rain, in snow and ice, from 42C down to -11C and from Norway to Morocco. When rebuilt in 2013 we found very little rust at all and now she is accumulating stone chips and hopefully, God willing, on her way to her third rebuild when we hit 200,000 together. So start thinking about the passion. Most of you, when interest rates rise once more, will turn your thoughts to other "investments" and leave us cognoscenti alone. Thank God.
ETA:- I forgot to add that I bought my first E-type, an old english white outside lock roadster with red interior, for £300 in 1967 when I was earning £1,000 p.a. Sadly it was not a good investment because I tried to emulate Marc Bolan, so that accounts for one less of the 91 outside lock cars made. Today, that car would be a minimum pf £300,000. I think i'll nip down the scrappie in Portsmouth.
Great post - a friend of my father's is always going on about how you could have bought X car for a few thousands in the 70s, which sounds like a bargain until you realise not many people had a spare few thousands in the 70s.So get off your high horses. Cars are not chattels; they are things to be cherished and adored, not investments.If yours are investments, well, I hope the market crashes. I went through this in 1991 and I don't care; my car dropped from £75,000 to £20,000. My car is still my car and I'll drive it, as I did today.
And as regards what Jaguar NE said - get real! I rebuilt my car in 1987 and have, as said above done many a mile since, through wind and rain, in snow and ice, from 42C down to -11C and from Norway to Morocco. When rebuilt in 2013 we found very little rust at all and now she is accumulating stone chips and hopefully, God willing, on her way to her third rebuild when we hit 200,000 together. So start thinking about the passion. Most of you, when interest rates rise once more, will turn your thoughts to other "investments" and leave us cognoscenti alone. Thank God.
ETA:- I forgot to add that I bought my first E-type, an old english white outside lock roadster with red interior, for £300 in 1967 when I was earning £1,000 p.a. Sadly it was not a good investment because I tried to emulate Marc Bolan, so that accounts for one less of the 91 outside lock cars made. Today, that car would be a minimum pf £300,000. I think i'll nip down the scrappie in Portsmouth.
Edited by lowdrag on Sunday 27th May 07:29
But the real reason why I love your post is that you are true enthusiast who uses his cars rather than seeing them as investments.
I drove Dad's 2 litre Vitesses , writing the second one off . Black ice was to blame , or rather my incompetence to spot or deal with same . But I have a soft spot for them . Good ? Steering , dash and lovely blary six which made oversteer a constant companion . Bad.... where do I start? Cabin heat , rust , pinking , awful electrics , thirst and crappy synchromesh . Alfas better by several million percent of course , as was a 1600E , but the Vitesse was better than anything with a Vauxhall badge, and just about every similar Brit car of the era
2xChevrons said:
I may not go as far as to call a Vitesse an 'appalling heap of st' but it's certainly the worst of the small-chassis Triumphs, which I don't rate particularly highly in any case. It combines the boxy looks and floppy body of the Herald with the nasty gearbox and over-taxed rear suspension of the GT6. A standard Herald is perfectly pleasant to drive in a low-key Aunty-Mabel-On-A-Sunday sort of way while the GT6 looks infinitely better and feels much tighter and more direct to drive. Still a fairly dire bit of engineering but it's certainly exciting and you can't accuse Triumph of not getting value for money out of the Herald platform.
As for E-types - can you say they're overpriced when they still sell fairly readily even that the big numbers they command now? But, speaking personally, I don't think they're worth the premium. I'd take a Series 1 XJ6 or XJ12 or an XJC over an E-type any day (whoever said that the XJ was the one that was massively underpriced was spot on - even with the recent rise in prices a Series 1 XJ is not worth what I feel they should be given how good and how significant they are). I'd take a Big Healey or a Datsun 240Z over the E-type, to be honest. Most of the hype seems to be about the looks, which I've never quite understood. Even the early 'pretty' ones don't do it for me - all the proportions are wrong - bonnet line too low and symmetrical, windscreen too vertical, glasshouse too tall, track not wide enough for the body. The only good-looking E-type is the Low Drag Coupe because it has a roofline and track in proportion to the rest of it.
This is the thing; too many cars are being touted as classics when really, they aren't. My nose departed Dad had, as a young Man, a 998 Cooper when it was two years old. An S was a real weapon but uninsurable. But either of them would run rings around stuff like the Vitesse.t' but it's certainly the worst of the small-chassis Triumphs, which I don't rate particularly highly in any case. It combines the boxy looks and floppy body of the Herald with the nasty gearbox and over-taxed rear suspension of the GT6. A standard Herald is perfectly pleasant to drive in a low-key Aunty-Mabel-On-A-Sunday sort of way while the GT6 looks infinitely better and feels much tighter and more direct to drive. Still a fairly dire bit of engineering but it's certainly exciting and you can't accuse Triumph of not getting value for money out of the Herald platform. As for E-types - can you say they're overpriced when they still sell fairly readily even that the big numbers they command now? But, speaking personally, I don't think they're worth the premium. I'd take a Series 1 XJ6 or XJ12 or an XJC over an E-type any day (whoever said that the XJ was the one that was massively underpriced was spot on - even with the recent rise in prices a Series 1 XJ is not worth what I feel they should be given how good and how significant they are). I'd take a Big Healey or a Datsun 240Z over the E-type, to be honest. Most of the hype seems to be about the looks, which I've never quite understood. Even the early 'pretty' ones don't do it for me - all the proportions are wrong - bonnet line too low and symmetrical, windscreen too vertical, glasshouse too tall, track not wide enough for the body. The only good-looking E-type is the Low Drag Coupe because it has a roofline and track in proportion to the rest of it.
E Types look odd in photos but better in the flesh. Show queens don't do much for me, but a Series 1 on painted wires with a good coating of flies/brake dust looks much better. If I were to own one, I'd almost not wash it on purpose. The 250 Ferraris, be they the GTE or GT Lusso are far, far prettier to me but they're also an awful lot more money so relatively speaking, the E Type is almost cheap. In comparison, the E Type makes the 275GTB look like a fat Labrador. And how much are they now?
iSore said:
E Types look odd in photos but better in the flesh. Show queens don't do much for me, but a Series 1 on painted wires with a good coating of flies/brake dust looks much better. If I were to own one, I'd almost not wash it on purpose.
I'm not alone then in having the same thoughts 
iSore said:
The 250 Ferraris, be they the GTE or GT Lusso are far, far prettier to me but they're also an awful lot more money so relatively speaking, the E Type is almost cheap.
As a car mad kid growing up in the sixties, S1 E's were every kids ultimate pin-up car without question........and then one day when with my Dad getting petrol at HR Owen on the A40, there in the showroom was the first 250 Lusso I'd ever seen..........and that was it, 'E-Type lust' banished forever 
Even today, if I had the money and space for a modest car collection, it would be a Mk2 or an S-Type that would get the nod over an E-Type......
TooMany2cvs said:
iSore said:
In comparison, the E Type makes the 275GTB look like a fat Labrador. And how much are they now?
<faints>
Fat Labrador...?!?!?!?!?!?!
Compared to...
...think I know which of those two could do with laying off the Bonios and going for longer walks...
Try this Mk1.
Edited by swisstoni on Thursday 31st May 11:11
lowdrag said:
Whoa there Ken! It is the 2+2 and the S3 roadster that has the upright screen and only two wipers. The coupé has the same as the roadster, the shallower screen and three wipers.
Hi Tony, I knowIt is just that in the fixed head it looks more upright than it does in the roadster.
I know the tin top has it's fans, but I've always felt the roadster to be much the better looking version.
The same is true for the S3, the open ones don't look as bulbous as the 2+2.
Edited by a8hex on Thursday 31st May 16:57
I know it's sacrilege but I have never like E-Types as much as I should , even as a car crazy lad in late 60s . Narrow track , priapic bonnet, and progressively uglier as they got updated . 911s - early ones -look even sweeter now than they did then and, as for the 275GTB, .I saw my first in Leeds in 1967 and it was quite the loveliest , sexiest man made thing I had ever seen , even if its bonnet is also phallic . It is still one of the best looking cars , eclipsed only by the Miura and the 330LMB .
Edited by coppice on Friday 1st June 09:36
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