Having just recently purchasing my first Jaguar, and being fortunate to have obtained it from a long time Jaguar enthusiast, who has maintained it in excellent condition I have a question that perhaps someone can help me with. My car is badged an XJ8 Heritage. I have been unable to find any reference to a Heritage on this forum. Is this name peculiar to Australia ? And does anybody know the difference between the standard XJ8 and the Heritage ?

 

Never heard of it. Strange.

 

Do you have any pix of the car and its badges? Could it be a "Dealer" edition? Occasionally dealers will add options, striping, etc. and offer cars up as "Special Editions".

 

I have pictures in the Photo Gallery under "Geoffs Jag". There is a badge on the right hand side rear which reads Heritage. I do not believe it is a dealer optioned car. I think it could possibly be the Australian version of the VDP or Soverign. I know many years ago when VDP was based on a BMC body with a RR engine (4 litre from memory) and sold here in Australia, they did not have a very good reputation, and Soverign was assigned to the Daimler version of the XJ6. One of which in the early 70's I had the pleasure to drive on numerous occasions and from which I obtained my love of Jags.

 

I also heard of Centenary badges which I have never seen in person .

 

Heritage was a limited edition version of XJ8 back in time, only 500 of them was made and as far as I know they all came with navy exterior and cashmere interior with navy piping on the seats. There is no modifications about the engine however the rims were different than the regular XJ rims. Heritage was not the VDP for Australian market, Heritage is today's Portfolio Xj, all portfolio XJs came with Heritage badges and they kept the tradition ,so they have cashmere interiors with navy pipings as well. Although the interior color remained the same they have replaced the exterior color with some kind of black paint instead of navy. I'm not sure about the production number but only 147 XJ Portfolios came to US and they were 30k more expensive than the VDPs. Also your heritage and portfolio XJs can be compared to launch edition Mercedes S550s, only 550 of them was made and they all came with dual tone interior and with a special exterior paint, as well as unique rims.

 

A couple of pix from Blakeney's gallery for illustration...







Looks like JagMaster is living up to his SN

 

Thanks Jagmaster, your help is very much appreciated.

 

It seems you have a special model which looks stunning