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anybody heard of a factory sunroof installed in a coupe in 1976. I have one and it looks fairly original, but I dont know.

 

Hi Brian,

I saw a picture of a 1977 blue XJ6C with a sunroof, so I'm guessing it was a factory option. It doesn't seem very common though. It would appear you have fairly rare car. They're gorgeous cars by the way.

Mike

 

All xj coupes came with vinyl hardtops from the factory according to all records. All-painted hardtops were repainted from the original vinyl at some point during the cars history. Especially the if the sunroof looks good for it's age, it shouldn't.

 

The vinyl top looks original. The electric motor is what throws me. In my repair manual it shows the motor in the trunk behind the rear seat, but I think that is on the 4 door. Mine is mounted in front of the track on the roof under the headliner. By the way I cant get it open, and I cant find how to manually open it. I will post photos tomorrow. Any help would be great. It is rusty around the edges, so it has been there for a while.

 

I'm 99% sure that the first true *factory installed* sunroofs were on the Ser III cars...I just haven't had time to search my resources to verify it. Before then all sunroofs were installed after-the-fact by outside companies...although perhaps, in some cases at least, under the auspices of "factory approval".

I might be wrong.

Certainly there were many individual dealers who had sunroofs installed, using local companies. In large metro-areas of the USA that would often have been American Sunroof, a company that was really big in the sunroof business back in the day. I think they even did some of the "factory authorized" sunroof jobs for some manufacturers.

I'll see what I can find out this weekend.

Cheers
DD

 

Thank you Doug!! Any information would be great.

Is there a way to get the original bill of sale or a list of components that originally came on the car anywhere out there via the vin number?

 

Totally off-topic but Doug's mention of American Sunroof reminded me. ASC is now a very interesting company that fabricates a lot of custom and factory concept cars along with other projects.

Just one examplefrom http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/a/asc/asc.htm
http://www.ascglobal.com/

My guess is that you are dealing with an aftermarket sunroof installation.

 

No Factory sunroofs in ANY series XJ till S3 in 1981 M.Y.,, standard on US cars since then.(although Jag did make a stripper XJ in 1990-1992 that lost the sunroof, except as a option on that period XJ40) and the normal loaded XJ6 was renamed Sovereign during this time. Until they did a refresh on the XJ40 for 1993 and went back to just XJ6 and VDP. and then added the XJ12..
The last Jag Factory sliding sunroof stopped with the MK9 sedans in 1961. Now, Tons were added by dealers and owners aftermarket... even some of the US distributors like Continental Cars in New Orleans that imported and prepped the cars for JAGUAR at the ports, installed some before they even went to the dealers....Still NOT from the factory...

 

Thanks, So if I cut it all out and seal up the roof again, is there a linning under the cloth head linner or does that just glue directly onto the metal?

 

Brian, that motor location itself is a giveaway,,, Jag Did place the motor in the trunk on the seat bulkhead of the S3 cars, and drove the sliding panel with cables as did almost all cars of the time. All the aftermarket roofs had the motor mounted on the frame as you mention because it would have been way near impossible to run steel tubes with cables into the trunk to the motor.. that was the sacrifice.. with the aftermarket roofs you lost more headroom because of the frame mounted motor, the OE roofs with the cables allowed more headroom since the motor was in the boot.. And normally there is a round plug in the headliner to remove that gives you access to the motor to manually open and close it with a special tool. or screwdriver, depending on the maker.

 

Brian, oh yeah about the headliner,,, the cloth headliner material was glued to a fiberglass composite board that is held in place by the surrounding inside rood trim, not glued to the metal. This was most likly discarded on yours with the SR addition and I would guess you headliner is suspended and not bonded to anything....