This is some background on how I came to acquire my 87 XJ6 last year, and the nice surprise I got when I finally rifled through the glove box.

I bought this car off eBay for $3800. It was a Southern car most of its life and had spent a year in Michigan after its owner was transferred there for work. He himself had only bought the car a year prior.

While there are some small gremlins to fix -- a water leak somewhere around the windshield, an A/C amplifier that has gone nutty -- this was about as good an example of a Series II or III car I've ever seen. There is no rust on the car, the A/C compressor works (hey, I live in Alabama -- A/C is not optional equipment down here), and there's been a ton of restorative work done to the vehicle already.

But I just wasn't aware of how much.

I was sitting in the car last week and decided to rummage through the glove box. I don't know why I hadn't done it yet, but I just hadn't. I started pulling out the detritus of former owners -- a receipt for food here, a package of screws there -- when I happened upon five or six folded pieces of white notebook paper.

It was a list. A list of projects, projects for my car. Things that had been done had been checked off. Things that were pending were still marked. It wasn't a checklist so much as a small narrative.

The engine bay in this car is pristine. Parts have been painted recently, all the wires are new. In my hands, I now held the story of what had been done, why it had been done, and when it had been done.

The previous owner hadn't given me much to go on. I doubt he had ever seen this list. I found I was the beneficiary of what appears to be an engine rebuild, or at least a rebuilt cylinder head job, less than 3,000 miles before I purchased the car. The previous owner had driven only a thousand or so miles in the year he had the car and had kept it in storage.

There were notes on water leak I'm still chasing, notes on the custom steering wheel (which I may yet remove from the car, given the horn button is crafted out of part of a Jaguar hubcap married to a Tropicana orange juice can and probably isn't crash-safe), plus the timeline on how the seats (from a 1998 XJ8) came to be installed, along with fresh carpet. The owner at the time had meticulously installed and re-installed the seats multiple times, modifying them to get the proper height. You sit a little higher in my car than a stock XJ6, which I've grown to like. There was also a note on the leaky gas tank that the most recent owner claimed he wasn't even aware of before selling me the car ("if you fill it past halfway, it leaks," read the note). I had to replace it shortly after my purchase as it was leaking directly onto the exhaust.

On the last page, there was a "wish list" of projects yet to come. The owner had replaced the factory rear-view mirror already, but there were notes about acquiring a Delphi unit with a digital compass in it. Many of the planned improvements had exclamation marks after them, noting the author's excitement. Figuring up the cost of what he had already done, I guess he had put $10,000 - $15,000 in the car to get it to where it is now. I couldn't help but wonder just what this car's condition was prior to the work.

What a treasure these notes are to me. Reading it, I felt like I was listening to that previous owner talking about his prized possession. How often have we brought old cars home wondering what surprises lurked under the hood, and here I had a road map in my hands.

I'll try to take some pictures of this car and upload them soon. To say I got a good deal on it given what I've learned of its recent history is somewhat of an understatement.

Jess

 

You acquired the car last year and only just got round to clearing the glovebox.

The PO had it for two years and he hadn't cleared it either.

Sounds like like there some work to do to get it ready for the summer concours!

Great find. I always like to get as much history as possible from PO's of my cars. The notes you've found are a fantastic history of the car. No amount of bills or service stamps can replace that kind of information.

Graham

 

Well done Jess a positive story!

 

I am a big believer that, a documented history of a cars maintenance and modifications is a very valuable thing to have ,..especially for a Jaguar that has been converted to a V8 drive train.

During the time I have owned my 86 XJ6 I have taken pictures and documented everything (on an Excel spreadsheet) that has been done to the car, including regular maintenance. All of it collected on an external hard drive on my PC as well as a copy of that, on a flash drive.

In the case of my V8 conversion, I have created a master folder which contains several other folders, each pertaining to a specific category, i.e.
paint, front suspension, rear cage, cooling, engine and trans,overall wiring and diagrams of all wiring etc.

All part numbers of items that have been replaced, and when that event happened. A checklist of work done, when it was done, what is scheduled to be done.

My thinking was/is, one day I will croak, whoever gets the car will have a genuine up to date history of it, at least for the time that I have owned it, ( 1995). Hopefully he/she will be able to pick up where I left off.

I feel this information is good stuff and the master file has grown substantially over the years. No guesswork ,..its all there.

 

When we find a wrecking yard Jag, the First thing I do is check out the glove box. One such car I named Rhonda after the PO. It was light blue Series 3 and had lived neglected in the mountains for several years before being turned over to wholesalers. Very recently before that, the rear brakes had been completely replaced, new calipers and rotors. There was virtually NO wear, calipers still freshly painted.

I knew her name because I found a registration/insurance wallet and emergency contact numbers, one of which was Rhonda's brother. I called both numbers, thinking it was be fun to know the history of the car whose IRS was coming home with us; hers had been disconnected, his was unresponsive.

When we bought Nix we got the paperwork for the conversion. Period. (At least we got that!) The PO was not very forthcoming with Any information about the car unless specifically asked, and I've discovered since then that a Lot of what he said was a bald faced lie!

All the work done on Nix since I took possession has been photo-documented as Alyn mentions, and saved in a master folder with many sub folders, one for each major component and more sub folders for specific repairs and modifications. All the paperwork is saved right here in my desk in chronological order starting with the original conversion papers.

I plan to drive this car until it simply can't be fixed anymore but it's still handy to know when I did this or that, where parts came from and their #s. Paper trails are good, if for no other reason than to CYA.
(';')

 

Even though having comprehensive documentation may add value to the car at sale time, I, like LNR, have no intention of selling ithe car ...But as time goes by and memory fades, its nice to have a saved chronological record(s) of past events. Especially with a EFI V8 conversion where there is no "online" documentation to fall back on.

But you never know what the future holds and if the time to sell does arrive, I feel that it would be easier to get the asking price from another potential Jaguar XJ6 S3 buyer with full documentation, as well as info about where (geographically) the car has spent most of its life.


Always disconcerting when a seller appears to be hedging when asked specific questions about the car being sold. Tough enough to find a good car as more and more of them cease to exist.

As well I have been squirreling away good parts as I find them. S3 power antennas, (have a few) dashboard, VDP door cards with the correct wood inserts, boxes and boxes of small parts gauges Trip computers, etc. Happened to be on EBAY and noticed that some of these items are getting to be expensive /rare.

 

Yeah, my car came sans documents, but with battered license plate
from a Jaguar dealer in nearby Vallejo. Gone now. As it was highly detailed, I've wondered why those survived. I replaced them with "classier" ones with crouched cats....


I lost a bunch of "notes" about my car and adventures. Decades ago,
I splurged on a Dell AXIM 5, pocket PC. Far more capable than I ever got. Quite useful in my business. Then, I did a running list of Jaguar issues and fixes. Erred. I used the "notes" part. Synchronizing to my desk top didn't include "notes". It crashed. Lost in a hot reboot.


Some stuff still there. It syncs on XP on another machine.


Alyn:


When I croak, someone is going to get a ton of printed Jag material.
In binders and loose. Organized, slightly at best. At least a year's worth of reading!!!


I went on errands in the Jaguar yesterday. As, I prepared to turn into
the Rite Aid park lot, I looked in my mirror. Well, what do you know,
a white E type roadster, Waved and made my turn. did he turn in, nope, he went on.


I think I've seen his car and stuff on Craigs list....


Carl

 

To be fair to myself, I had gone through the glove box (I *thought*), but these papers were lying perfectly flat on the floor of the glove box and I didn't find them on the first pass.

This pales in comparison to when my father passed away. He had a 1970 Corvette that he had bought new (he died in 2005). While cleaning out the glove pouch (not a box on those cars, just some leather map pouches), we found one of the original purchase documents for the car itself. It had been riding around in there 35 years, open to any elements that might affect it from above, yet was intact.

Jess

 

When I bought my 78 four door xj6 donor car I was very pleased to find it had a completely rebuilt engine by no less than VSE-engineering with the complete record of everything that had been done to the engine. It had been done less than 2 to 3000 miles ago. Last cost estimate to do the same work was around £5000!

Plus, it had a complete stainless steel exhaust which looked very recent, probably at the same time, and probably a serviced rear IRS.

So great value from a car which I bought for less than £800.

 

Brilliant!