It is my understanding that the original owner of my 73 XJ6 ordered the car from the USA and then traveled to England to pick it up. I assume she toured around using the car on a vacation. I vaguely recall that in the 60’s, there was some financial advantage to importing a “used” car to the United States as opposed to a new car. The car still had what I think is a genuine British plate on the back, when I bought the car. I bolted the USA plate on top of the British plate,which is what the previous owner also did.
I was told that British plate numbers are never duplicated. If that is the case, where would I inquire about the particulars of their records regarding this car; date and location of issue, and to whom was it issued?
Hi Lou
Yes we call it a registration number or often a number plate. The number usually stays with the car all its life although you can transfer a different/personalised number to the car .
The first three letters denote where it was first registered, the three numbers are random and the L denotes it was registered in 1972.
Sometimes DVLA ( driver vehicle license authority) can help.
If you have trouble doing it long distance let me know and I will see what I can find out.
The site linked to above is ok but the information is available free direcly from DVLA.
I ran the number through there and unfortunately they have no record of the car, because the car had no doubt left the country before the records were computerised.
It’s the second two letters of the registration that denote where it was first registered and your case it’s Coventry which makes sense from what you say. This will explain - http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/registrations/hp.htm
If the DVLA don’t have any record of the car then I doubt they will be of any help.
My only suggestion would be to obtain a Heritage Certificate which should tell you the dealership that first sold it…
This link will tell you how to go about finding the car’s history -
Thank you for the information. From your note, I assume that the plate was issued in December 1972 from a government office in Walsall, which appears to be a city in Staffordshire.
I further assume that when an individual purchased a car for pickup at the factory, the factory would arranged for the plate to be issued before the buyer arrived but in the name of Jaguar and then later changed to the buyer. i
According to Wikipedia, Jaguar cars were manufactured in Coventry and Liverpool in the 60’s, which is a distance from Walsall.
Hi Lou, I have a 72 with the same sort of story. It still has it’s original british reg plate and the original paperwork says it was registered to Jaguar. Even has the original tax disc that is written to Jaguar as well. Registration location was Coventry.
Car was insured by a German company for the new owner’s trip around Europe and for it’s shipping-container journey to California where it lived til I got it. I can’t remember off-hand the company that set up the transaction/trip but I did find alot of old ads from the 60’s and 70’s advertising their services in various publications. Interesting stuff.
~Mike
It is very cool - it’s most of the reason I bought the car. Has pretty much all the paperwork including a postcard of the car where presumably the buyer was writing down what options he wanted (AM/FM, A/C, Turbo Wheels, Whitewalls), an estimate of the cost to get the car and have it delivered to Madrid, Spain. Even the stuff from California DMV about the federal pollution devices being there and intact on delivery. Just a wealth of obscure documentation.