Submitted by bsheridan@rest… on Thu, 01/29/2009 - 17:50

Dear JCNA members,

I recently purchased a Jaguar XK120 which was first sold in 1952 according to its California Pink slip (Title). In 1955 the car's roadster body was removed (it was used to race and probably was wrecked). Then a hideous racer (rat-rod) body was fitted to the car around 1955, the last year it was registered. The car was raced locally near Red Bluff, CA and was stored for many years. It is estimated to have less than 20,000 miles.

I want to register the car and drive it for awhile while I build up a collection of roadster body parts to restore the original roadster body. Siince the car has not been registered for over 50 years it has fallen out of the DMV records. For DMV registration purposes I need to prove it's date of manufacture.

Can anyone fax or email me a copy of a Jaguar Factory record to show what month and year chassis# 670640, engine# W4757-8 was built?

My toll free fax is: (866) 32800168. Me email is: bsheridanatrestaurantplus.com

See picture of the car below. It's ugly but purrs like a kitten!

Thanks in advance,

Submitted by bob5837@roadru… on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 01:29

Dave,
I am going for the chassis# approach instead of engine# for requesting new registration.

I want to end up with a more-or-less real Jaguar and by fitting the chassis with a fiberglass replica, it would only be a custom body Jaguar.

I did read about registering the car in Nevada first then register it in California and get a Pink Slip.

Submitted by woebegone@mind… on Sun, 02/01/2009 - 21:26

Robert:
If the State of California will not accept your original "pink slip" for date of manufacture (and the big investigation on "kit cars" registered as originals springs to mind), they are NOT going to accept a printout of a comment from a forum to "prove" anything.

They may not even accept a "Heritage Certificate".

California hasn't used engine numbers for titling in probably 50+ years, if I recall, but they did used to.
Ignore the engine number.
Concentrate on chassis numbers, and hope like hell they don't question attaching rivets.

You may have to license it out-of-state first.

California also has some oddities, in that if they DID allow you to re-license it under the original pink slip, they might (or so I have been told) charge you every annual registration fee for the last 50+ years to do so.

Find all the books you can that like chassis numbers, borrow them, copy pertinent pages, take it all with you, along with a Heritage Certificate.

If it LOOKED like an XK-120, it might have been easier.
What was the reason for not putting the plastic body on it?