2006 Jaguar XJ Super V8 Portfolio Quick Spin

Your rich uncle died. That new twitch in your face led to a multi-million dollar malpractice payout. Your ex-husband had the misfortune of getting caught with his mistress. You own stock in ExxonMobil. Regardless of how you got there, you’re in the top echelon of society now, and, coincidentally, Jaguar has an upper-crust automobile befitting your new lifestyle.

Well, they did, that is.

See, all 145 copies of the 2006 Jaguar XJ Super V8 Portfolio are spoken for, despite the $115,995 sticker price. That’s a lot more than you’ll spend on the XJ Super V8, a model that shares the same dimensions and an identical powertrain with the Portfolio, but lacks a fancy headliner, an extra 80 watts of sound, and a host of other upgrades that place the Portfolio at the top of the XJ hill. Ah, but the Super V8 doesn’t come in Black Cherry and lacks the Portfolio badge, each of which should soon be worth their weight in gold within uptown’s gated communities. It’s a matter of keeping pace with the Joneses, so if you opt for anything less than a Portfolio, be prepared for whispers about your “unfortunate financial difficulty.”

On the other hand, if money isn’t an object and more powerful competitors from the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Audi aren’t to your liking, make sure to get you and your checkbook down to the nearest Jag dealer, because these things go like hotcakes. Big, expensive, limited-production hotcakes.