I bought a new headliner board/biscuit off Ebay. It's in really good shape, but before I install it I thought I'd see if there was any/enough interest to go through the time/expense of taking a mold of it and reproducing copies in fiberglass.

At present, repro headliner biscuits are available from the UK only for around $250, but the shipping is also around $250, so around $500 out the door. I would probably charge $225 myself and use greyhound freight to ship, which should be no more than about $75, so about $300 out the door instead of $500 from the UK.

If no one's interested, that's fine. It's just a shame to have this thing here in such nice condition, a bunch of molding supplies nearby, and know there's no one in the US making these right now. But I'd need a few people right off the bat to want one to be worth the expense of making a mold, not to mention the large amount of space the mold will take up in my garage...

 

Curious - what would be the advantage of having it in fiberglass. Lighter? Or just more durable.

 

Yes it would be 10X more durable, but I really wouldn't replace a perfectly good original headliner biscuit with a solid fiberglass replacement just for that reason. I would only think people would want one when their original has become so damaged that repair isn't practical and a complete replacement is needed.

It doesn't happen that often, so the demand may not be that great. And some folks may live close to a boneyard that has the odd XJ-S around and may be able to get a replacement headliner that way, but no such luck for me, and headliner boards are fragile enough that some boneyards don't want to ship them if they have one, or will but quote a high shipping price.

 

So it looks like zero interest at this point. Ah well, guess I'll have to find something else to mold...

 

I would suggest you make a mold for a fiberglass or carbon fiber hood. That would get some interest I expect.

 

Fiberglass hoods are already available here.

I could mold the hood, but making a hood is a much more extensive molding and assembly process. Unless you plan on just having a flimsy exterior shell, which is an option available at the above link for $545, you have to mold both the outer sheet metal of the hood, and then separately mold the inner structure. They then have to be joined together—if you want a fully functioning hood that actually has good stiffness and can be mounted using factory hardware as opposed to hood pins. The fully-functioning version they have is $1320, with an in-between version $890.

If I was going to mold the hood, which I easily could, I would only create a fully-functioning version that recreates both the exterior shell and internal support structure, and I would probably only do it in carbon fiber—not fiberglass. Or maybe a fiberglass option but using epoxy resin as opposed to polyester resin. My hood is being modified to accommodate late 80s Firebird GTA rear hood vents, as seen here:



I may also add a hood scoop I'm making that is similar in appearance to the Aston Martin V8 Vantage X-Pack, like this:



After the scoop is finished, I'll see how it looks on the hood. It was made by molding the center area of the hood from the rear edge to a few inches shy of the hood emblem up front, raising it about 3/4" in the front and 1.5" in the rear, and filling in the sides. It's a very subtle cowl induction scoop that allows the car to retain its class as opposed to looking like a hot rod. It may turn out ok, it may not. We'll see.

 

I looked at those but it seemed, if you went with the practical option, you were getting pretty close to the stock weight. Bank for the buck wasn't there. CF might be justifiable though. No doubt, there are owners who would like to lose weight up front.

 

I made a mould for my XJS headlining, still have it, I have made a couple from it, like has been said still even 100X better than the pos fibre board item....

I also have a fibre glass hood ..... actually fibreglass everything lol



Did this some 12yrs ago now..... still have it, but is up for sale

 

Looks like a nice Banham conversion...

 

Definately not a Banham...... They used fiesta front and rear lights, looked awful, wrong proportions

Mine is a Paul Bailey kit, one of the last he sold before he sold the lot to Bob Tilley at V12 Sales which is the same guy/company you posted the fibre glass hoods/bonnets up from....

Still selling them too I believe

 

Ah. My mistake. Got Banham and Bailey mixed up...

 

i would love this if i have the money. My headliner was sagging to the center console when i got my car. It took a while, but i found headliner material at a local fabric store, went on easy. The hardest thing was the dry crapped out foam that i had to fiberglass back together.
its definitely is a shame like you said that you have it and noone wants the offer

 

i would love a fiberglass headliner board because mine is totally messed up from removal

 

DAMN! i really hope im not to late for this!

 

Looks terrific!!
There were some moulds for this a short while ago on ebay. Personally I think it looks great, especially the wheel arch flares. Why are you selling it???
If I could afford it I'd buy it immediately!!

 

I have other projects I want to do, I have too many Jags and running out of space.

The car had a full retrim, new tyres, engine sorted, brakes, suspension the paintwork is fresh with a good shine no scratches, I will miss this car when it goes.

I have spent a fortune on it over the years, but that is the joy of owning something unique, it is up for £15K but I will take an offer

 

Would you concider making a repro fiberglass headliner to sell?

 

if you still want to mold one to sell i am completely willing to buy it. And i appoligise for my sloppy comments on this post im new to the whole forum thing

 

I will be removing the deteriorated foam from the board in a few weeks and will see how pristine I can keep the board. If it's in good enough shape I may still mold it. I wouldn't go through the trouble of molding anything other than a perfect board, and even then, I'm not sure that it would be worth the time/expense for only one person willing to buy a repro. I really need at least a couple folks interested to be sure I wouldn't lose money.

Let's see how things go with the removal and if anyone else is sure they would want one. A couple other folks seemed interested but not 100%.

Stay tuned.

 

Well, damn near a year later but I would be a second one interested. My '88 XJ-S has no headline at all at the moment.

Marty..............................