Let-s get this straight. Although most Jaguar owners think the air intake
above the outboard headlamp is for fresh air, they are WRONG. If the
car is equipped with the climate control, this intake is blanked off in
the inner panel of the footwell. The air goes NOWHERE! Every S3 car was fitted
with the intake grille on the headlamp surround, and the piping in the
fender well, but only the cars to 81 had footwell fresh air vents. After
that date (when the “air proportioning lever” was added below the radio)
the footwell intake was blanked off. I believe that heater-only equipped
cars (that means NO Canadian or US car, probably not Australian-New Zealand
cars either; please correct me if I am wrong) may have retained the footwell ve
nt. But definitely, post 81 climate control equipped models do NOT use this
air intake. The air intake is strictly from the grille in front of the
windscreen.
Gregory Andrachuk