Insignia

[Cristatus]

I can see from the register that there are 4 Insignia XJS registered, one is my car and I would like to make contact with the other 3 owners either via this thread or a private message if you prefer.

I have read the research on the XJ40 forum about the XJ Insignia numbers and have contacted Jaguar Heritage to try and get details of the XJS Insignia's which are thought to number 57 in total. I will add details if I can obtain. But in the meantime it would be good to make contact with any other Insignia owners out there.

If you know of any other XJS Insignia's that are not amongst the 4 registered I would also like to know.

It would be great to establish the total number of UK supplied Insignia's and then how many may be left.

I believe there will be an XJS Insignia feature in the September Jaguar World which I hope will include some photos of my car which is L22 XJS seen here at the Eastern Day this May.

[ptjs1]

Cristatus,

believe that Rob Jenner has searched the Jaguar Heritage records for all XJ40 & XJS Insignia. If you do a search on the whole BB for the keyword "Insignia", you'll find his posts relating to these models.

Cheers

Paul

[Cristatus]

Paul

Thanks I had seen these posts from Rob but from what I have seen he only did the full research on the XJ40s and only established that there were only 57 XJS Insignia's my aim is to establish the full detail on these 57.

Neil

[ptjs1]

Neil,

I THINK that he has both the VIN and body numbers for the XJSs So, if so, it may make your investigation much simpler.

Good luck

Paul

[Cristatus]

Rob Jenner has done extensive research on the XJ40 Insignia (higher numbers than XJS). In his description of the XJ40 Insignia Rob had indicated there were also 57 XJS Insignia's, but had not been able to analyse the data in the same detail as the XJ40s. As an owner of one of the XJS Insignia's I was curious to find out a bit more in terms of models and how many may have been UK cars, so I asked Jaguar Heritage to release the details they have.

Jaguar Heritage have now confirmed that in fact there were 64 XJS Insignia's. Although I do not have full details, as JH are not willing to release the individual records with VIN numbers, many thanks to Faye a JH for her help.

I can confirm the following summary:

XJS INSIGNIA RHD LHD Total
4.0 Coupe 7 6 13
4.0 Convertible 18 3 21
5.3 Coupe 0 0 0
5.3 Convertible 0 1 1
6.0 Coupe 6 10 16
6.0 Convertible 4 9 13
Total 35 29 64


Of the 35 RHD cars 33 are confirmed as UK cars.

It seems that in many cases the colour was simply recorded as Special rather than the actual colour.

So we can now see that the eighteen 4.0 RHD Convertibles are the most numerous and the single 5.3 LHD is the rarest (this car was supplied to Bahrain)

My own car is one of seven RHD 4.0 Coupes.

So I am still wondering how many might be left on the road in the UK, it seems that total XJS numbers are very low according to the DVLA just 65 on the road and 117 SORN (thanks to Simon Mulcahy for this information). My V5C does not record the cart as Insignia so it is not possible from, DVLA records to determine Insignia numbers remaining. If the remaining Insignia numbers are in the same proportion as the whole UK build it must be a very low number indeed but I cannot find the UK production numbers to do this calculation but hopefully someone else has the numbers at hand.

One fact Rob has written about is that as each Insignia was a bespoke you can find cars that have either standard colours and or standard leather trim. The colour and trim records are in many cases not helpful as some are unrecorded and others simply say special. If we assume special = an Insignia colour then we have 17 of the 64 cars with standard paint finish, there are also 2 unrecorded and it is quite possible that these are also standard colours which would mean that there could be 19 in total in standard colour. There are 23 cars with standard leather interior rather than the special leather options available to Insignia models. As the paint and leather were the main features of Insignia cars it is quite possible that we can now conclude that these two subsets were mutually exclusive or close to that any way so that would mean that possibly only 22 cars had both the paint and leather options of the Insignia range. But we cannot be sure.

Are there any other Insignia owners out there I would like to contact as many XJS owners as possible.

Neil

XJS Insignia 4.0 litre Coupe L22XJS

[ptjs1]

Neil,

Good to hear that you've got further progress on your research. ,

Jaguar Heritage (in their previous guise) were always very accommodating to allow formal research by the club on their records. We have always been able to get full access to build records. It should be no problem at all to get access to VIN numbers etc if you are doing research on behalf of the club. Contact Rob Jenner who I am sure can facilitate for you. A couple of thoughts:

Also, I don't know what figures Simon gave you, but as at 1Q2015, there were over 3,100 XJS licensed for the road in the UK with another 4,500 on SORN. So, slightly more than 65! However you're correct that the DVLA records don't identify Insignia separately,

Good luck with the next stage of investigation.

Paul

[Simont485]

Sorry about that Neil. I assumed that Jaguar XJS search on 'How many left' would cover all variants. But no!

Paul is correct though!

[ptjs1]

Simon,

Don't worry. The DVLA records for XJS are amazingly complex. I guess it was the responsibility of Jaguar to identify the model type when cars were registered. Whatever happened is confusing as the nomenclature are all over the place for XJS variants! There are at least 14 naming conventions that you have to search to get the full figures. I know this from painful experience!

Paul

[Cristatus]

OK so the only responses I have had from XJS Insignia owners is 2 via the XJS Club so come on JEC there must be some out there.

I have now spoken to Rob Jenner when we were both at the Silverstone Classic and whilst he does not have all the VINs we will see if the 2 sets of information can be combined to provide more clarity. I will post an update when this is done.

[ptjs1]

Neil,

As you will appreciate, only a small percentage of our members use the club's Bulletin Board. If you write a short article / request for info and send it to Brian Harris, he can include it in his XJS Forum pages in the magazine. This may elicit a better response.

Good luck

Paul

[mike.p.smith915]

Hi,

I have just joined the club and noticed the reference to the Insignia model in the post below. My XJS is a 1994, 4L Coupe, Insignia in Amethyst Blue with Magnolia hide. The colour is definitely not a standard colour but I'm not sure how I would tell if the leather was any different to standard? Was it just the colours that were different or the finish/grade of leather? The seats are still in very good condition even after nearly 200,000 miles.

I don't have any photos of the car at this stage as I have started to restore it but will take some as the work progresses.

Regards
Mike

[ptjs1]

Mike,

Congrats on the purchase of the car. I would expect that you have an AJ6-engined car (VIN prior to 194775)? I'm also guessing that it has non-rouched leather seats with integral headrests?

These seats were introduced in UK cars at the introduction of the AJ16 engine. However they were often used in Insignia models and in US cars in early 94 before the AJ16 engine. They also often had contrast piping in Insignia cars. I THINK the leather is the same as that used in later AJ16 cars but sometimes in non-standard colours. Magnolia was a standard colour but was not used for integral headrests cars in AJ16 models after VIN 194775.

Cheers

Paul

[carpediem2000455]

Hi, I was told when I recently bought my 1994 convertible 4.0 Insignia that it had Autolux leather on the seats, and all the trim was leather. Not sure what Autolux is, but at 100k miles there is almost no wear.
Paul C

[mike.p.smith915]

Hi both,

Thank you for your feedback on seats. I had a quick look online at pictures of Insignia seats and the ones in my car look the same as shown on the link below. They are electrically operated and look to be standard seats. The seats are piped but in the same colour and have the standard headrests (i.e. not Celebration seats).

The car has an AJ6 engine and is VIN number 191501. I have owned the vehicle since 1997 and am only the second owner from new. The car has been off the road for the last 8 years as it wasn't needed and it also needs quite a bit of work to get it back to pristine condition. Thats my next job...

Regards
Mike
https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl= ... mrc&uact=8

[ptjs1]

Mike,

The seats in that picture link are "standard" seats and Magnolia was still a standard colour on that year with the separate headrest seats. Presumably, the paint code on the ID panel says "AEM"?

Paul