would you pay £2k for a bend new XJS body shell ??

[Brakebuster]

as the title,

there is a brand new , never painted, completely bare facelift coupe body shell on ebay for £2K...........




hmmm

BB

[ptjs1]

There were 3 new facelift convertible shells up for sale from different sellers a few years ago. They all seemed to struggle to find buyers at about £1800. They might even still be for sale!

For the amount of metal, pressings and panels, £2k is really cheap, BUT...

..the amount of work to reshell a modernish car like a late XJS is huge. Reshelling an MG Midget or a TR6 is really easy by comparison. I guess the wiring looms, electronics, trim and sheer number of parts makes reshelling an XJS a very difficult task. I know one person who had a complete write-off base car with all the necessary parts + a new bodyshell and he gave up the idea as being too complicated and sold off the complete lot!

If anyone has completely reshelled an XJS, I'm sure we'd all love to hear about it!

Paul

[davidr]

Tempting when you think about the cost of restoring a rusty body. £2k would hardly get you started!
But, when you start with a bare shell then you have to find ALL the bits like sound deadening, brackets, fittings, small finishing panels etc etc. Most of these won't be available and you'll destroy them trying to get them off an old shell.
And, as Paul says, a facelift XJS is a very complex car!
It would be an interesting project to watch!

[Brakebuster]

There is no fear of me atempting this, but i think it is viable as a project if its done without the need to pay a bodyshop to assemble the car

as for the ' fiddly bits ' , its nothing more than i have already done to my HE , in that to restore the bodywork properly all the insulation, clips , looms, etc etc have to be removed anyway , so not really that much more to do , and you would be surprised at how many new parts are available from Jaguar Heritage for such a project..

the main issue as i see it is getting the body and its associated panels painted before the reconstruction takes place, then you have to be very carefull around the new paint so no damage happens ,

it it were a grand or less, i would have a go........lol

BB

[ptjs1]

BB,

Make them an offer of £1000! I bet they'll take it!

Paul

[bokapita]

There is no fear of me atempting this, but i think it is viable as a project if its done without the need to pay a bodyshop to assemble the car

as for the ' fiddly bits ' , its nothing more than i have already done to my HE , in that to restore the bodywork properly all the insulation, clips , looms, etc etc have to be removed anyway , so not really that much more to do , and you would be surprised at how many new parts are available from Jaguar Heritage for such a project..

the main issue as i see it is getting the body and its associated panels painted before the reconstruction takes place, then you have to be very carefull around the new paint so no damage happens ,

it it were a grand or less, i would have a go........lol

BB

I quite agree. The key to a reshell is having a donor car on hand that is essentially complete; with that, as BB says, it is essentially no more than many have done when rstoring their cars. If there had been a prefacelift shell available, I would have snapped it up at 1800 !

[XJR-S]

Question is, for example, if I reshelled my XJR-S into this, I assume I'd lose the XJR-S badge on the log book?

[Brakebuster]

This body does not have a ' VIN ' , but it does have a body number, which is never related to for build processes

so if you reshell the XJR-s , it can still be called an XJR-s as it will have your VIN stamped into the engine bay

Jaguar policy was to destroy any original shell if carrying out this process to eliminate a duplicate VIN , but this is not the case here as it is not Jaguar selling the new shell

HOWEVER

i would imaging that this process would seriously effect the value of any such car for resale, just because.....

BB