A Restoration Two Decades in the Making
The owner of Body by George bought his Jaguar XJS at auction back in 1996, a purchase shaped by growing up around his father’s dealership. The car wasn’t just inventory or a flip — he drove and enjoyed it for years before eventually parking it behind the shop with a plan: someday, it would get the full restoration it deserved.
That someday kept slipping. The XJS sat behind the business for years while other work took priority, a familiar story for anyone who has ever put off a project car “until things slow down.”
Two Weeks Away From a New Life
Things finally slowed down. Just two weeks before a fire tore through the property, the Jaguar was scheduled to be shipped out to a restoration shop. The transport fell through at the last minute, and the car stayed put — parked in the exact spot it had occupied for years, waiting a little longer for a truck that never came.
When the fire hit, it destroyed much of what surrounded the XJS. The Jaguar itself remained standing — damaged beyond saving, but still recognizable, still there. A car that had spent years being ignored suddenly became the focal point of the wreckage for an entirely different reason.
What “Total Loss” Actually Means Here
There’s a bitter irony in the timing: had the transport gone through on schedule, the Jaguar would likely have been miles away and untouched when the fire broke out. Instead, a shipping delay put it directly in harm’s way.
Calling a stored project car a “total loss” carries different weight than it does for a daily driver. Vehicles awaiting restoration are frequently insured, if they’re insured at all, under standard policies that value them at current condition rather than the agreed-upon value serious collector policies use. That gap matters most in exactly this kind of scenario, when a car survives just long enough physically to still be recognizable, but not intact enough to save. It’s part of why collector car insurers push owners toward agreed-value coverage for anything sitting untouched for years: a static project car can quietly lose most of its insurable value on paper while its restoration cost stays the same or climbs.
Recovery isn’t even an option yet. The property remains an active crime scene, meaning nothing on site — including the Jaguar — can be moved, sold, or scrapped until investigators clear it. That kind of hold can stretch on for weeks past the fire itself, leaving owners in limbo even when they’ve already made peace with a vehicle’s fate.
A Long-Delayed Project, Reduced to a Question Mark
The owner now considers the XJS a total loss, but not necessarily the end of its story. He says he hopes someone with the right resources might still take it on, whether for parts, a partial rebuild, or simply to give a nearly 30-year-owned car some kind of second act.
For now, the Jaguar sits exactly where the fire left it. A car that waited decades for a restoration that never came — and then, through nothing but bad timing, became the story anyway.
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