Export Cars

[tonyabacus]

Does anyone have a photograph of the cars waiting to go for export, or know of one located in a book etc?
In particular I want to try and see the export documentation that was stuck to the front screen, or does anyone have a copy of such a document.

Also amongst our midst, did anyone work or know of anyone who worked in the Export Department at the factory, who might throw some light on the exporting procedures and documentation. The other area I am trying to investigate is the Warranty Department and again anyone have any leads I might chase?
Thanks
Tony

[Heuer]

Every car had a commission tag affixed to the windscreen before it left the Factory. These were removed by the Dealer during PDI checks and are extremely rare to find still intact. The 6" x 3.75" self adhesive label even had a part number - BD48349 - and was either typed or hand written. This one survived because it was inserted into the Owners Handbook:




You can see the tag in the windscreen's:


These appear to have Distributor/Dealer details on the side glass;

[tonyabacus]

David
Thanks, that answers the query in part and thanks for the pics, however there must have been another label to show the port of destination and the distributors/dealers details for the delivery. This would have enabled the car to be easily picked out from those parked awaiting collection in the US.

I can see in the picture you posted that the label on the side screen is quite a bit larger than the one you have included, also there are more labels on the front screen, so I guess one of these is perhaps a destination label of some sort. Some of your pics seem to be in the Netherlands and whilst customs regs may have been different across various countries, I think there will still have been a destination identifier of some sort.

Very slowly I am trying to put together the trail of events from the time of order in the US through the build and delivery to being handed over to the customer. Unfortunately a number of those involved in the process both here and in the US are no longer with us to be able to ask. Any further thoughts appreciated.
Tony

[Heuer]

Let us know what you find and I will add it to the Forum.

[PeterCrespin]

One snippet that may or may not be relevant concerns my older sister, who got married to a Geordie before they went to teach in Malawi for 8 years. A few months before leaving, they bought a brand new Cortina Mk2 Estate to take out to Africa. It had a narrow yellow border around the normal pressed black alloy plates. This was very rare to see on the road but as a car-spotting kid living near a major port I did see such cars once in a while. I think the yellow border was something to do with export cars temporary UK registration, in case you got stopped by the police or some such.

Obviously anyone interested can buy a heritage certificate, which will declare if it was a personal export car. I read somewhere that if you can provide documents or photos proving that the car had a given UK number initially, you can get the number back if it’s unassigned when it comes back to this country.

[MarkRado]

In 1973/74 my father ordered a XJ V12 LHD directly with the factory and picked it up personally from an official Jaguar dealer in London. It had a GB registration (GDU135N) and the tax disc said "nil- personal export". I cant remember exactly, but he had to return the plates together with some paperwork. The first service was already due on the way home in Zurch at Emil Frey Garage.

[Geoff Green]

I apply the "find my car" in a vast sea of cars every time I go to the airport, stadium, mall, theater, etc. While shipping a car in the groups would result in an unload into a large car park, then a sort of the first you walk to into geographical location groups (South East, North West), then upon arrival there into smaller groups (Dallas, Houston) and finally into dealers in the city. When working at the dealer we never saw a destination other than on the "Window Sticker" in small print and the occasional dealer trade would mix those up. We and the bank always went by the serial number and later VIN.

[tonyabacus]

Geoff
Thanks for the input.
Are you confirming that there was some sort of sticker on the windshield that gave a destination? If so did this have the details of the distributor or a dealer, as I have not had sight of such a sticker but guessed there must have been something to direct the car through the various stages of the transportation process, until it got far enough to then warrant a check on the Vin number.

At the docks I am thinking that the drivers would be looking for a screen label with the Country/Shipping Port noted, then perhaps checking for a Vin number against the shipping manifest to verify the correct vehicle was loaded. Similarly once unloaded, the collection team would be using a similar process. Do you know if that was the likely scenario?

I am thinking that with a vast array of cars in the holding compounds that they would have devised an easy system of initial recognition i.e a screen Destination Sticker, without which locating a car from just a Vin number would be a time consuming task. Perhaps with your dealer knowledge you can throw some light on what took place.
Tony