I feel like I’ve been taking it easy on you all recently, showing you cars that run and drive and all. So today, I decided to subject you to a couple of long-derelict rides. One of them is a British classic, and the other just kinda looks like one.
Yesterday’s cars were from the same year, and they complemented each other well enough that I decided to give you a “both” option in the poll. It seems that every time I do this, the “both” option outperforms one of the cars, and yesterday that was the Ford Crown Vic. You all seemed impressed by its cushy interior, but less so by its outward appearance. The Nissan pickup, on its own, won out over the package deal pretty decisively, and I suspect without the “both” option, the gap would have been even wider.
I don’t really have any interest in owning that Ford, nor do I need another 4×4 pickup. I’ll say this much, though: if I ever did decide to sell my Chevy truck, or if some terrible fate befell it, its replacement would probably be a Nissan 4×4 pickup with a stickshift.
Nobody buys a project car with the intention of letting it sit, but things happen. The time isn’t there. Some repair frustrates you more than you thought it would, or thwarts you entirely. All that hope, all those grand plans, that you had when you handed over that pile of cash turns into “I really should go work on that,” and then into “I really should just sell it.” Today’s choices have been sitting for years, and it doesn’t sound like anyone has even tried to get them going in ages. Could you be the one to put one of them back on the road? Let’s see.
“The Duke” – 1939 Jaguar SS100 kit car – $2,000
Engine/drivetrain: 1.6-liter OHV inline 4, four- (or maybe five-) speed manual, RWD
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Odometer reading: 76,000 miles
Operational status: Been sitting for 10 years
Fun fact: the original name of Jaguar was SS, short for Swallow Sidecar. The company got its start making motorcycle sidecars before producing its first car in 1931. Jaguar was used as a model name in 1935, and the company name changed to Jaguar in 1945 to avoid any association with Nazi Germany. This is a replica of the sports car that made the company famous: the SS Jaguar 100, so named for its 100 MPH top speed. I very much doubt that this replica can come anywhere close to that speed, even after you get it running.
Unlike most kit cars, this one is not based on a VW Beetle platform. Instead, it uses a Chevy Chevette engine and transmission, and probably the rear axle and front suspension as well. Whether this is an improvement or not depends on what you think of the Beetle and the Chevette. It does place the engine in the correct spot, at least. This car appears to have been finished and driven some, but it has not turned a wheel in more than a decade. The Chevette’s guts should be easy enough to find parts for, and it’s not a complicated engine.
The interior is where a lot of kit cars feel half-assed, and this appears to be no exception. It’s also disgusting. You’d probably end up gutting the whole thing and starting over. I see a lot of Chevette parts in here, which I would expect; a lot of kit cars use as much of the donor vehicle as possible. The thing in the plastic bin on the driver’s seat looks like an air conditioning compressor, but I can’t imagine why you’d want air conditioning in a car like this.
Like most kit cars, the body of this car is fiberglass, built on a square tube steel frame. The body looks like it’s in decent condition, but the paint is pretty bad. You’d probably have to repaint it. I suggest some wild, garish color; I don’t think this car wants to be brown and beige.
1975 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow – $3,800
Engine/drivetrain: 6.75-liter OHV V8, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Beavercreek, OR
Odometer reading: 82,000 miles
Operational status: Been sitting for 5 years
While the car above is not a real Jaguar, this one is the real McCoy, a bona-fide honest-to-Crewe Rolls-Royce. The Silver Shadow had the largest production total of any Rolls-Royce model, more than thirty thousand over fifteen years. But it still proudly carries the Spirit of Ecstasy atop its grille surround, and it’s still hand-built by a bunch of guys with names like Charley and Nigel.
The Shadow was a car of firsts for Rolls-Royce: its first unibody (rather than body-on-frame) car, and its first car with independent suspension on all four corners – with a self-leveling hydropneumatic system licensed from Citroën. Its engine is a 6.75-liter V8 producing 189 horsepower, though Rolls never officially published horsepower ratings in those days, simply listing the engine’s power as “sufficient.” The transmission is a nice, simple, bulletproof TH400 from General Motors. This car has been parked for more than five years, and the seller says nobody has tried to start it in that time. It might wake up without much effort, or it might never run again. You pays your money, you takes your chances.
The interior of a Rolls-Royce is what every lesser luxury car manufacturer aspires to: a cozy environment of leather, wood, and wool carpets. It could use a good cleaning, but it’s in good shape, which is good, because restoring a Silver Shadow interior properly can’t be cheap. One thing does concern me: It has footrests for the rear passengers, but I don’t see any fold-down trays. Where do they expect you to put your Grey Poupon?
There aren’t a lot of photos in the ad, so it’s a little hard to assess this car’s condition, but what we can see looks promising. It doesn’t look rusty, and the paint is shiny under all the dust. The right taillight is cracked, and it might be hard to find a replacement, but there’s always that taillight repair tape. Using that stuff on a Rolls-Royce is my kind of blasphemy.
You’ve got your work cut out for you if you want to revive either of these, but the good news is the price of entry is relatively cheap. It’s only the beginning, of course, but nobody said project cars are cheap. If you were to take one on, which would it be?
I voted for the Rolls. With the exception of a Lotus 7, I have no interest in kit cars.
This is a both day. The Jagette is a (famous last words) easy project, and could be a lot of fun.
And everyone needs a Rolls at some point. You just do.
And it will disappoint you in ways that you can’t even imagine, and become a hole in the road where you throw money, but when you sell it, you will say “Goddamn, I shouldn’t have sold that car…”
How much can you sell a THM400 for? Because that’s literally the only thing in either car worth a dime.
Sorry man….no vote today.
I’d go for the Rolls-Royce, these have surprisingly good DIY support and at the end you have a genuine car and a Chevette doing cosplay. I’m a little surprised they used a Chevette, using a Pinto or Mustang II like a Blakely Bearcat would have given a better handling donor and a larger OHC engine
Rolls. It’s almost worth it just for the lovely steering wheel. Take the Duke and 86 the engine and transmission. Paint it red and green and make it a horse drawn sleigh at a winter resort.
Two smelly piles of Nope.
I’m one of the rare kit car voters.
It’s a matter of hope.
The SS100 is what it is. Best case, maybe worth $5k in perfect condition and only fun for 10 minutes on a perfect day. To get there, if you have the skills might take only $2-3k of materials, so it might be a break even project. It’s never going to be nice and it will be easy to say “oh, the engine is roached, walk away” or the like.
The Rolls is what it could be. A good cleaning, a tune up and a tail light and it might be worth $15k. But it won’t be. There will be something wrong here and something wrong there and everything is going to cost money. It’s nice enoug that it will be really hard to walk away when the bills start adding up.
It’s a VERY tempting mistress, but since I have a proven track record of not knowing when to cry uncle, I’m going to go with the homely car that won’t tempt me into sucking my life savings into a vain hope of making it right.
This is really a none of the above situation for me, I’ve never seen an SS100 kit that was really any good (there was at least one decent MGTD kit manufacturer that I wouldn’t mind), and the Rolls looks like its essentially at parts car status, given what it would cost to bring back and what decent Silver Shadows sell for
Make mine the Silver Shadow, so I can El Caminofy it!
Shades of Travis McGee!
Rolls, Though I would probably not buy either, but if I had to. At least I could bolt up a SBC to the Th400, and I think a set of regular Juice Brakes could be made to work there, but that also means a lot of axle and spindle changes. It would not be worth the squeeze, but it would be a better to drive car if sorted.
It’s more of a both but if I had to choose one probably the jag kit I don’t think I’ve ever seen one but I’ve never looked either. Those rr pop up all the time for around that. The minerals oil systems are a PIA then you run into all sorts of other issues with weird systems and parts that are rare and expensive. So it’s probably just a shell unless you have serious money to dump into it. Just for the parts alone. Not that a whole drivetrain, suspension, and braking system would be cheap but probably cheaper then trying to bring all the systems back on line.
If I have to choose, I’m taking the Jaguette. It’s smaller, lighter, easier to work on and get running, probably more fun to drive, and just as useless to me. It’s on a VA title with an ’87 model year, so I don’t know if it would need to be smogged but I’ll bet it sat because California said it did.
Both of these are educational projects, but one is a community college 2-year degree in General Studies and the other is a PhD in Post-Lacanian Semiotics.