Good Afternoon Fellow Jaguar Enthusiasts!
I manage my family's Jaguar repair shop in Atlanta Georgia and have noticed throughout the years that almost every third brake light cover on the XJ8's/XJR's is cracked and broken. After many years of searching ebay/the internet for used or newly desined parts I have only come across a hand full of used ones we were able to purchase for customers and recently found a company out of Great Britan that has made these covers. They are quite pricy and out of the country making them not a great option for our customers to purchase. My friend who owns a shop across the street has recently invested in a 3D printer and I brought this issue up to him. He created a basic design by scanning the only perfect third brake lamp cover I had (off my mom's 2001 Jaguar XJ8) and this is what he came up with.
My question to the Jaguar community is if these were available in the US would you be interested in purchasing one and what would you be willing to pay? This is the first sample he has made and we tested it with my mom's actual third brake light and it fits like a glove!

 

Looks nice and I like the black color.

 

I think I'd pay perhaps $100 for one in charcoal. There is a firm in England that prints plastic parts for older cars and keeps our 308 brake light covers in stock in the various Jag colors. I think they were looking for a bit over $200, including shipping, with about a 2-week arrival.

 

Mine is OK because its always been garaged, but I have had to re-glue it to the window. Thus I have a suggestion. Design it with a little pedestal on the bottom to provide extra support so that the entire weight of the unit is not hanging from the glass (I have a small foam block wedged underneath mine, barely noticeable). I'd suggest to make the pedestal just a little bit long such that each owner could trim it to fit their particular car (as I suspect there will be slight differences). If you were to get paint mixed to match each of the interior colors, then I suspect you could get $100 for them or maybe more, but if I as a buyer have to go get a $50 custom-mixed spray can of paint, then I'm not going to pay nearly that much (I've been restoring classic cars as a hobby for 40 years and regularly repair broken plastic pieces like this so I'd do that before spending much over $50). It'll be more efficient anyway for you to paint them since you could get the same can of paint mixed and paint probably 25 of them vs the end-user painting just one and the rest of the can of paint going to waste. That's also a couple hours off work during the week to run that errand to get that can of custom paint, thus you can see the value of doing the painting on your end. (That's one of the things I like about Honda parts is that I could buy things like mirrors and door handles already painted, tho after about ten years, they run out of the pre-painted ones and only have the ones in primer.)

 

Just to follow up: An apology to the original poster for having slept through their mention of a British firm selling something similar for a pricey amount and referencing probably the same firm in my first post. The older I get, it seems the faster I read ... and the less I absorb! Mea Culpa.

Also, like PDupler I used a bit of (black) foam, maybe 2-3", from what I think is a 6' or 8' length of 1" pipe insulation from Home Depot. It wedges in almost invisibly under my charcoal brake light cover. No more looking in the mirror at some wadded up paper towels! Finally, while I'm pretty sure my car was garaged for the first 17 years of its life, I don't have a garage at my townhouse. So it's been outside the past six years except for brief irregular stints under a cover when I feel virtuous or have just detailed it for a show.

 

For my 2024 Mustang, I found on Amazon a set of those reflective mylar bubble wrap sunshades, not just for the front windshield, but for ALL the windows. Sadly, I lost my office parking garage a couple years ago when my employer bought and remodeled a historic building on the edge of downtown and moved out of the Class A tower where we'd been leasing. If it's threatening hail, I will pay for a day at a time to park in a public garage five blocks away, but on a day-to-day basis, I just park in the open employee lot to save time and money. I'm pretty impressed with how much it helps having ALL of the windows protected with the reflective sunshades. The XJ8 rarely gets driven to work anymore so I haven't felt the need to look for a full set for its windows (I have one for the front windshield, just not the sides and back). But just thought I'd share the idea since you have to park outside all the time. Even if nobody sells a full set for the XJ8, it'd be easy enough to buy a roll of the material and make your own. It wouldn't save the brake light housing, but would help save the rest of the plastic, vinyl and leather interior bits.

 

Thank you so much for your input! Before we go crazy making these, I want to get as much feedback, advice and input as possible. Thank you so much!

 

Thank you for that suggestion, my father had mentioned something similar about the weight of the brake lamp and it cracking. I think that's a great idea and allows me to take that idea to the drawing board. I also appreciate your input about pre-painting them, I realize that buying custom paint as a customer would be a pain in the rear end and having them pre-painted would save our customers a head ache. Thank you again!!