The 'E' Type Forum

I'm trying to trace the earlier history of my car from its original shipping date to the US in July 1964 (the distributor was Jaguar Cars, New York) to when its previous owner purchased it in July 1985. We have all the history from that point (including its US title in the name of the last owner from 1985). Thus far, we have drawn a blank before this point. It is a fully numbers matching car so, hopefully, some data is somewhere.

Does anyone know if there are there any reference points other than XKE Data and the Heritage Certificate? In particular, any other records that Jaguar might have which owners can consult to gain more information or other Jaguar reference points in the USA that can be written to? I'm conscious the first owner may have returned the warranty card - are these records maintained anywhere for US cars?

Many thanks!

Phil

My understanding is that all cars are listed as going to Jaguar New York, but were then allocated to dealers - I stand to be corrected on that though! There should be a customer listed, there is on mine but it doesn't give the specific dealer location, however I am lucky in that I have my car's complete history. It went to Oklahoma but nowhere is this on the certificate. It would be interesting to see if others have different info on their certificates.

I've recently imported a US car, purchased from a friend of a friend.

With a degree of success, I've started piecing together the history, one state at a time. To do so, you need to make contact with the American version of our DVLA - called DMV. If you have the last owners details, you can complete a form online, send an email to the right department or call. I've managed to trace mine back from MA to TX (I've had a detailed email exchange with the owner from 1999-2004 as a result) and back to Chicago. There, the DMV were more cagey about giving previous owner name and address, but did confirm the car was in MI prior to 1999. I can 'form fill' for IL and try again to get the actual owners name.

Basically, you need to explain to DMV that you are looking to trace owners for enjoyment and historical purposes (this is a 50 year old car after all) and that the data will not be used for any other reason.

Good luck!

Phill