Jag XJ-C/Daimler Coupe - What to do??
Discussion
Morning chaps,
Hope you're all well. Some months ago, I rather rashly bought a 1977 Daimler Sovereign Coupe via ebay...blind! Didn't go and see it as I was overseas at the time. The vendor had a lot of pictures. So it got delivered to my house and I first saw it some months later when I visited the UK.
Happy to describe that, other than the engine not being in quite the fine fettle that had been described, it was basically as told. Scruffy, needing new interior and respray...and brakes etc for MOT. But quite solid without much rot.
It has no history and the previous owner (I bought it from a dealer) hasn't replied to any of my messages.
It'll never be a concours car. I want to bring it up to scratch as a useable classic and be able to use it fairly regularly. My head is saying that I should leave it standard and just make it nice. My heart is saying that I should make it look mean, convert to manual gearbox, gasflow/blueprint the engine, put cross spoke alloys on, stiffen up the suspension and make it look mean and moody!
Am I being a philistine??
Hope you're all well. Some months ago, I rather rashly bought a 1977 Daimler Sovereign Coupe via ebay...blind! Didn't go and see it as I was overseas at the time. The vendor had a lot of pictures. So it got delivered to my house and I first saw it some months later when I visited the UK.
Happy to describe that, other than the engine not being in quite the fine fettle that had been described, it was basically as told. Scruffy, needing new interior and respray...and brakes etc for MOT. But quite solid without much rot.
It has no history and the previous owner (I bought it from a dealer) hasn't replied to any of my messages.
It'll never be a concours car. I want to bring it up to scratch as a useable classic and be able to use it fairly regularly. My head is saying that I should leave it standard and just make it nice. My heart is saying that I should make it look mean, convert to manual gearbox, gasflow/blueprint the engine, put cross spoke alloys on, stiffen up the suspension and make it look mean and moody!
Am I being a philistine??
TooMany2cvs said:
Sort the problems, rust-proof it properly, then... use it. If and when mechanicals go south, improve them. If it gets to the stage that you can't live with the cosmetics/interior, then sort them. But USE IT!
Cheers dude. I intend to...can't wait to be wafting about in it actually! The rust proofing will be done as part of the respray prep...so I hope to have that licked as much as possible. Obviously it'll never be completely rust free without a complete strip down, which I don't want to get involved with.jezzaaa said:
It'll never be a concours car. I want to bring it up to scratch as a useable classic and be able to use it fairly regularly. My head is saying that I should leave it standard and just make it nice. My heart is saying that I should make it look mean, convert to manual gearbox, gasflow/blueprint the engine, put cross spoke alloys on, stiffen up the suspension and make it look mean and moody!
Follow your head, mate!It's a used car, so use it and enjoy it.
I know this board is full of people who prefer the hot-rod approach, but my vote is to keep these old cars as they were - isn't that what owning them is for?
Assuming you've got the money available to spend on the upgrades you've mentioned, spend it on doing a proper job of the restoration instead.
Unless the car has been previously restored I'll be very surprised if you don't find corrosion when you start digging around.
My own coupe was restored on a new bodyshell and subsequently stored in a heated garage yet it still had corrosion issues when I came to give it a full repaint recently.
If there's one mod I would carry out it's fitting a four speed auto.
Unless the car has been previously restored I'll be very surprised if you don't find corrosion when you start digging around.
My own coupe was restored on a new bodyshell and subsequently stored in a heated garage yet it still had corrosion issues when I came to give it a full repaint recently.
If there's one mod I would carry out it's fitting a four speed auto.
jezzaaa said:
Am I being a philistine??
I'd say so.I ran a 71 XJ6 this year for a while as a daily driver, I've run later XJ6's, Silver shadows, Rover P6's (among 50 other stupid eclectic cars)
The XJ coupe is a spectacularly good car. Don't mess with it. Just drive it. The only thing I'd change would be a set os period 15" Wolfies.
Huntsman said:
I'd say so.
I ran a 71 XJ6 this year for a while as a daily driver, I've run later XJ6's, Silver shadows, Rover P6's (among 50 other stupid eclectic cars)
The XJ coupe is a spectacularly good car. Don't mess with it. Just drive it. The only thing I'd change would be a set os period 15" Wolfies.
I must admit, there is a side of me that will feel guilty if I pimp it. Perhaps the subtle approach would be best...make the mechanicals a bit more modern/reliable but leave the looks as they are. I think that's acceptable these days.I ran a 71 XJ6 this year for a while as a daily driver, I've run later XJ6's, Silver shadows, Rover P6's (among 50 other stupid eclectic cars)
The XJ coupe is a spectacularly good car. Don't mess with it. Just drive it. The only thing I'd change would be a set os period 15" Wolfies.
Lovely pics of cars above. The coupe with the Series 1 face looks cool, although not sure the wheels are to my taste. Each to their own
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