My car is New Zealand new. I purchased the vehicle in September 1983, and I am the fourth owner. There was a fair bit of original documentation still with the vehicle, some of which is shown below.

Ownership history

The original owner, Arthur Walker, purchased the vehicle from Shorters garage (now Archibald and Shorter) on the 13 March 1962. He owned it until the 13 March 1972 (10 years exactly!) when it was sold to Northern Autos (second-hand car dealers) with 56,821 miles on the odometer. On the 30 March, it was sold on to Geoffery and Ingrid Halls of Whenuapai. Just under nine years later, in January 1981, Randall Hughes of Titahi Bay purchased the Jag. By this stage it had covered 89,450 miles.

I purchased the car from Randall in September 1983 with the mileage at 103,380. I had been looking out for a Mk2; ideally a 3.4 or 3.8-litre model, but most available at that time were either very rusty, or worn out from hard driving. The 2.4-litre cars generally hadn’t had such a tough life and represented better value for money.

Here is the  Manufacturer’s Warranty documentation that came with the vehicle.

And, here is the Jaguar Heritage Certificate from the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust (JDHT). The Heritage Certificate provides detail about the vehicle from the original Jaguar Company records. It confirms the original numbers and colour scheme, gives the dates of build and despatch, and the original destination of the car.

I didn’t have much of a plan in those days, I had always liked Mk2s and wanted to get it the point of being a nice drivable car. However, it was never quite finished, and over time the demands of a young family meant a reliable car became the priority. The poor Jag became increasingly neglected and was eventually moved to a lock-up in a partially stripped state. Which is where we begin …