In Florida where Cudak lives you have a lot of old people who fled New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania when they retired at age 55 to 60 years old. The year round humid high heat and sunshine rejuvenates those Yankees who are used to experiencing winter from Thanksgiving until the 1st of May. They retire to Florida at age 55 and then on average they seem to live another, very active and healthy, four decades more.
That is how the thousands of old flexi-flyers, toboggans, and well kept ancient Schwinns end up in Florida. Native Floridians tend to destroy and abuse all their bicycles, automobiles, and recreational sporting goods. Perhaps it is due to a lifetime of seeing and living with the possible impending threat of Hurricane destruction.
Kilroy's gray Jaguar isn't quite nearly the same POS as of those 1975 to ninety-something Jaguar XJ-S & 1968 to ninety something Jaguar XJ-6 are.
Kilroy's gray Jag has the benefit of FORD MOTOR COMPANY's influence and engineering. FORD purchased Jaguar around 1989 and they were extremely slow in making any engineering improvements/ any improvements to product durabilty, but by the time FORD had owned JAGUAR about at decade, the product quality and engineering was the best it had ever been , near the turn of the century. Saying JAGUAR product quality and reliability became the best it had ever been, starting at near the turn of the century, ain't saying a whole lot, because JAGUAR cars were notorious for being the WORST CARS IN THE WORLD for DEPENDABILITY/RELIABILITY----------------even far worse than the ITALIANS & FRENCH.
The post war Jaguars through the turn of the century, with few exceptions are probably the WORLD'S BEST LOOKING CARS, but incredible P.O.S. !!!
FORD sold JAGUAR sometime during the 21st Century. Last that I had heard that TATA MOTORS of INDIA owns JAGUAR outright. The INDIA folks seemed to have lost the superb look that was JAGUAR. Today, they look as crappy as they were mechanically during the 20th Century.
It is my opinion that the Series III , JAGUAR XJ-6 (from about 1979 through 1987) was the best looking four door sedan that any manufacturer has ever produced.
Then they really effed up the look for about a year or two with the horrible cheap looking square headlights and ugly front, until realizing that they really screwed up.
If you're living in Florida where you have no restrictions such as annual emissions testing and annual inspections, I would remove that P.O.S. Jag V-12 in any JAG XJ-S.
I would remove a Jag six from any SERIES III XJ-6 in a New York Minute.
Several decent reliable powerplants will easily fit in the engine bay without upsetting the weight balance or the handling, and without cutting.
Hell Yeah, it would be prohibitively expensive to pay a professional shop to do such a conversion, but if you have above average mechanical skill and have ever done any automobile restoration projects or just rebuilding/ repairing the trashmobile that you owned while you were in high school and college.
I wouldn't do a carburetted Chevy 350 v8 and TH-350 tranny (or even the TH-400 tranny). In 2024, I would only do an EFI, and not something with a carburetor.
The widely mass produced kit (John's Cars.....among others..) does a simple enough and straightforward install that will make your old XJ-6 as reliable and dependable as a 1972 Chevy Nova because essentially that would be what you'd have with the engine/trans,
Even 1980's GM throttle body (TBI) electronic fuel injection on a basic Chevy V8 would deliver better MPG, More Reliability IF DONE PROPERLY, you could also expect to get at least another 25k to 35k miles in engine longevity above what you could expect from a carburetted v8.
Now the overdrive automatic transmissions seen in GM products behind Chevy v8 engines during the eighties, nineties, and twenty-first century are notoriously fragile and expensive to rebuild compared to a rugged, mostly durable TH-350 automatic or the near bulletproof TH-400 automatic that is the most durable automatic. The TH-400 was introduced in '65 on Cadillacs only, I think and then OLDSMOBILE, PONTIAC, & BUICK got the TH-400 for 1966.--------Chevrolet cars only got a version of the TH-400 for 1967, 1968, and 1969, I think.
The BOP/Cadillac TH-400 won't work with the Chevrolet engine, at least not without a custom made adaptor. The Chevrolet version TH-400 tranny mates only with Chevy engines.
I might be totally wrong about this, but that is what the memory in my head tells me
ROLLS-ROYCE & JAGUAR did use a GM TH-400. Rolls-Royce Silver Shadows were so equipped from 1966 onwards, however Rolls insisted on having a silent, electric shift mechanism and not the typical mechanical shift linkeage. All of the 1975 onwards XJ-S did have a GM TH-400 transmission, GM phased out the TH-400 from its cars/trucks after the 1980 model, I think. I don't know when Jaguar could no longer source the TH-400 from GM.
I'd imagine that the Jag trans(GM sourced TH-400, etc) is going to be at least as different the BOP (buick-olds-pontiac..also cadillac) trans is from the Chevy trans.
Other than from a desirability / RESALE standpoint, the ordinary old carburetted Chevy V8 with TH-350 trans or the much harder to find and source chevy TH-400 trans WOULD BE OK
A quality transplant with EFI will be much better if you ever want to sell the car BECAUSE YOUR POTENTIAL POOL OF BUYERS IS MUCH LARGER because there is a chance of passing emissions in places such as metro Atlanta and elsewhere, where they are only concerned about the tailpipe sniffer readouts.....Low and you PASS, higher than prescribed and you FAIL.........they aren't concerned with what manufacturer's engine or who made what parts or what year of said engine or parts...... unless you tell them...they go by what year of the car you're registering and it must be at least as clean as that...........beyond a certain age of the car and it becomes exempt from emissions testing.
******LASTLY, IF YOU DON'T HAVE ABOVE AVERAGE MECHANICAL ABILITY, SOME PRIOR EXPERIENCE, AND AT LEAST A TWO CAR GARAGE AT YOUR HOME, AND ALL OF THE PRE-REQUISITE TOOL SET, THEN DO NOT EVEN BOTHER WITH TRANSPLANTING A DECENT DRIVETRAIN INTO AN OLD JAG.
Do Not Even Think About Buying An Old Jaguar under any circumstances, if that is the case.
If you do possess above average mechanical ability, etc..., then you may be much better served to just seek out and locate a JAGUAR XJ-6 or XJS that has already been converted to the 350v8/TH-350 combination by the prior owner. Make damn certain that the current prior owner has owned and driven it regularly with this conversion for a minimum of at least five years after the transplant. That is the only way that you would ever want to own a Jaguar from the 20th Century. Beautiful cars, both inside and out, but a massive P.O.S hunk of junk under the bonnet.