Gentlemen: A few years ago, I was attempting to find the name of the original owner of my 73 Jaguar XJ6. It’s my understanding that she traveled to England to pick up the car at the factory. When she returned to the USA, she left the British number plate in place and simply placed the American plate on top. The British registration plate is DHP492L. At the time I was pursuing this, Big Jim wrote that the “L” denotes a 1972 registration, which seems reasonable despite the supposed 73 manufacture year of the car (maybe it’s a 72?).
At that time, member Jimbov8 emailed me an extremely long URL indicating the site might provide some information. At the time, I did not pursue it, t but I would like to try ut now. Is there an easy way to find a June 17, 2019 email from Jimbov8 in Jag Lovers?
“L” registration ran from August 1st 1972 to July 1973. There was nearly always a gap between manufacture and registration so the build date could potentially have been before August '72.
Your suggested 1973 manufacture date would make complete sense since the "L"registration was good for most of that year.
The second 2 letters, ‘HP’ denote the car was registered in Coventry which was the nearest registration centre to the factory. Sir Wiliam Lyons personal car was PHP 42G with those same two letters.
This link will probably provide information but it’s a commercial site so you may have to pay. All the information that can be got is available free of charge from the DVLA direct. I had a look and not surprisingly there’s nothing shown. Their data is really only intended to show data on UK cars on the road or in the UK but long term off the road, or UK cars that have been scrapped.
The JDHT “Heritage Certificates” always used to include the name of the first owner - whether they still do that in the light of current “data protection legislation” I can’t say. Worth a try though.
The name of first owner was only included when known. The dealers were responsible for putting that detail on the record at the time, and many did not bother.
I got my certificate 2 years ago, which gave the distributor as Henlys in London, and though no dealer was given, they included the name of the first owner, but it was a business. So knowing by the number KMG that it was registered in Middlesex, and discovering by wikipedia that Middlesex had 7 districts, I googled the business name in each district, and got a hit in Chiswick Ealing.
Ahhh … my car was delivered to Henlys Ltd., London, as well, and the Passport to Service specifies 88 Piccadilly, London WIVONH. Does anyone have any pictures of the site left? Today there’s nothing left of it.
My original registration was HUL 88N. What does this tell us?
Well, N registration ran from August 74 to end of July 75. The UL indicates Central London registration. Both what you expected but it at least confirms that.
Henly’s were one of the biggest dealer groups in the country at the time and Picadilly would have been one of their (maybe the most) prestige dealer locations. It still is. It’s a corner site in one of the most expensive roads in London.
They went out of business a couple of decades ago and the premises are currently up for rent (good rates probably available due to the virus)
I am pretty sure -UL was a central London registration which fits with the car being sold through Henly’s. The N denotes registered between Aug 1974 and July 75. I think I remember Henly’s being there when I worked in London in the 70s.
While the car was delivered by Henly’s at Piccadilly, the original owner had the first services carried out by Henly’s at the Hyde, Hendon, and later went to “R.A. Creamer and Son, Ltd.”, Kensington, where the last entry is signed on 09-09-1990 at 41 kmls. Service intervals were every three months or 3 kmls!
I’d be more than happy to find some contemporary pictures of the dealerships!