Right now my 86 vanden plas has excellent paint with no damage. Us there anything I can use on my paint to keep it from someday getting clear coat problems? Thank you

 

Use a high quality wax on a regular basis and keep it garaged and out of the sun.

 

Sounds like good advice to me, but perhaps one of the detailers will chime in?

 

Basic advice is to properly wax your vehicle every 2-3 months, especially if it is not garaged and exposed to wildly different climates in certain areas of the country.

However, for my customers and own personal vehicles I strongly recommend doing the following "full detail" to properly keep your classic Jaguar's paint in the top notch condition you say it is in:

Hand Wash, Clay Bar Paint Prep, 3-Step Buff compound/polish followed by a good long lasting wax such as Pinnacle Souveran Liquid Wax (absolutely phenomenal) or Meguair's Mirror-Glaze Hi-Tech Yellow Liquid Wax.

3-Step Buff can be accomplished by user friendly Dual Action Polishers or Rotary Buffers for true paint correction. Every 2-3 months doesn't require a full buff, but I still clay bar and machine polish (especially darker vehicles) before applying a fresh coat of wax again.

Clear coat cracking, peelingm or fading tends to happen in common areas (hood, roof, trunk, top edges of quarter panels) in very hot "sun bake" climates, but can definitely happen in the North East/wintery climates too for vehicles that have not been properly taken care of over the years. Certain car manufacturers in past years have also used lower quality clear coat finishes which leads to issues regardless of how well previous owners took care of the exterior of their vehicle.

Your Jaguar sounds like it is in solid shape for the year so let's keep it that way

 

Thanks guys for all the help and I'm
going to do my best to make all Jaguar owners proud!

 

The original paint on a 1986 VDP was lacquer and not basecote clearcote. The 1987 Manufacturing years was the first year that Jaguar used basecote clearcote on the cars.

The only way you would have the two part paint on your car is if it has been repainted at some time. The clear cote used over the years has change so much that is it impossible to pin point the best method for preserving it without knowing when it was repainted and what was used.

If in fact it is original paint the only way to preserve it is to keep itout of the sun as much as you can. Lacquer will eventually craze and can easily be bleached if left out in the sun. Not much you can do about either problem.