| Manufacturer | Jaguar Cars |
|---|---|
| Production | 1992–1994 (281 produced) |
| Predecessor | Jaguar XJR-15 |
| Class | Sports car |
| Body style | 2-door coupé |
| Layout | RMR layout |
| Engine | 3.5 L twin-turbocharged V6[1] |
| Transmission | 5-speed manual[1] |
| Wheelbase | 2,642 mm (104.0 in)[1] |
| Length | 4,930 mm (194.1 in)[1] |
| Width | 2,007 mm (79.0 in)[1] |
| Height | 1,151 mm (45.3 in)[1] |
| Kerb weight | 1,372 kg (3,024.7 lb)[1] |
The Jaguar XJ220 is a mid-engined supercar produced by Jaguar in collaboration with Tom Walkinshaw Racing as Jaguar Sport between 1992 and 1994. It held the record for the highest top speed of a production car (350 km/h, 217 mph) (although it was modified from standard to achieve this), until the arrival of the McLaren F1 in 1994. The XJ220 is unrelated to other XJ models, despite sharing the "XJ" prefix.
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In the 1980s, Jaguar's chief engineer Jim Randle, as part of an informal group called "The Saturday Club", began work on a concept car, code-named XJ220, which - if put into production - could compete in a potential new Group B racing category. He saw it as competition for cars such as the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959 and wanted to re-capture the glory years of Jaguar racing from the 50s and 60s. He envisioned what was essentially an updated XJ13 - a lightweight two-seater with a powerful mid-mounted V12 engine. Randle expanded on the idea by settling on all wheel drive and an integral safety-cage so the car could be safely raced at extremely high speeds.
The concept car used a quad-cam 6.2-litre version of Jaguar's V12 engine, left over from a development project to test the viability of a quad-cam in the XJR-9 racer. The all-wheel drive system was produced by FF Developments, who had experience with such systems going back to the 1960s and the Jensen FF. The car was styled by Keith Helfet and included scissor-style doors similar to those in use by Lamborghini. The name "XJ220" was assigned as a reference to the targeted top speed of 220 mph (350 km/h).
XJ220 was never intended to be a production car; it was purely a demonstration, like so many concept cars, of the outstanding abilities of Jaguar's design and engineering team. However, following its unveiling at the British Motor Show at Birmingham in 1988 to overwhelming acclaim, demand for the car was so great that a feasibility study was carried out by Jaguar to see if the car could be made production worthy. TWR completed the study and confirmed that the car was viable, with the following specification: V6 twin turbo racing engine from the then current Jaguar Group C cars; 2 wheel drive, rather than 4 wheel drive; slightly revised body design, being shorter and with conventional doors.
The car was officially announced in 1989 with the revised specification and a price of £361,000 ($580,000 USD). Prospective buyers were asked to put up a deposit of £50,000 ($80,000 USD) to be put on the waiting list for delivery. Because Jaguar promised to limit production to 350 units, many of those who put deposits on the cars were speculators who intended to sell the car at an immediate profit. This would become a serious problem for Jaguar when the 1992 recession took hold. Jaguar took 1,500 orders for the car in a frenzy of bidding (taking £17m in deposits in one day) and had to whittle the order book down to just the 350 promised, which it did on the basis of 'first come, first served'.
The production version of the car was first shown to the public in October 1991. JaguarSport was charged with producing the car and had several goals/rules: the car would be rear wheel drive instead of 4 wheel drive to save weight and retain racing car dynamics; would have a turbocharged V6 engine instead of the big V12 to improve weight and distribution; and performance goals of over 200 mph (320 km/h), 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 3.6 seconds, and the lightest weight possible.
The 6.2-litre V12 had been judged too difficult to get past emissions regulations and there were also some design problems caused by the size of the power plant. In its place was a Tom Walkinshaw-developed 3.5-litre V6 race engine as used in the Group C XJR-10/11 racers, fitted with twin Garrett T3 turbochargers, generating 542 bhp (404 kW; 550 PS) of maximum power at 7000 rpm and 476 lb·ft (645 N·m) of torque at 4500 rpm. The engine was the first V6 in Jaguar's history and was essentially a 6 cylinder derivation from the Cosworth DFV Formula 1 engine, originally designed by David Wood for the Austin Metro 6R4 rally car. It was also the first Jaguar engine to use forced induction. In spite of the smaller displacement, the engine produced more power than the V12 and improved handling by being set lower and more centrally in the car.
As Autocar put it at the time, "Savage acceleration really is a given here. What’s really incredible about the XJ220 is its ability to provide such performance in a way that it never, ever intimidates. If we’re still looking for misconceptions, it would be forgivable to assume that a race-derived engine with a small capacity for its enormous output would deliver its power with the friendly progressiveness of a kick in the teeth. Not so. Its throttle response and, just as important, the weighting of the accelerator pedal, means you can draw on the Jaguar’s performance with absolute accuracy. Use only half the pedal’s travel and it goes like a Golf GTi, moving smartly into Porsche 968 territory with a little extra pressure. A bit more and you have Honda NSX acceleration on hand. The next stage takes you into the domain of the Ferrari 512TR, from which you will only erupt if you nail the pedal to the floor, something you could not conceivably do by accident."
The XJ220 was the first roadcar to exploit under-body airflow and venturi to generate downforce of around 3000lb for high speed stability. It used a Group C suspension configuration, leading to handling described by Autocar as "the finest handling supercar we have ever driven. Such is its damping that supercars we previously considered superlatively well-controlled over difficult roads now seem flawed and spongy after the Jaguar."
The car was produced in a purpose-built factory at Bloxham near Banbury, with the first cars delivered to customers in July 1992. Original customers included Elton John and the Sultan of Brunei. The overall project was led by Mike Moreton, who has since written a book about the experience, "Jaguar XJ220: The Inside Story".
Some customers were dissatisfied with the increase in delivery price from the original £361,000 to £460,000 as a result of index-linking of their contracts. Another blow was the global recession which took hold between the car's announcement and its eventual release. This caused some 75 speculators to attempt to back out of their commitments, either because they were no longer able to afford them, or because they did not think they could sell the car on for a profit. Further complicating the issue was Tom Walkinshaw's offer of the XJR-15 which was based on the Le Mans winning XJR-9. Some customers either sued Jaguar or threatened to sue; in any case, Jaguar gave customers the option to buy themselves out of the delivery contract. Nonetheless, some buyers challenged Jaguar in court, although presiding Judge Lord Donaldson ruled in Jaguar's favour.
A total of 281 road-cars were made. For the owners who took delivery of their cars, Autocar's verdict was "Right now, the XJ220 gives us a standard by which all other fast cars can be compared. For the few who will actually own and, hopefully, use their XJ220s, the fact that they are in command of the most accomplished supercar ever made should suffice."
TWR developed a further 6 XJ220S, built in carbon composite and with a higher state of tune at 680 bhp (507 kW; 689 PS). These were essentially road-going versions of the XJ220C racer.
A racing version called the XJ220C was built to compete in GT racing. The XJ220C, driven by Win Percy easily won its first race, a round of the BRDC National Sports GT Challenge at Silverstone.
Three works XJ220C's were entered in the 1993 Le Mans 24 Hour race, in the newly created Grand Touring Class. Two of the cars retired but one XJ220, driven by John Nielsen, David Brabham and David Coulthard took the checkered flag to take a class win, beating Porsche by 2 laps. This, however, was revoked when the XJ220C was disqualified a month later after a steward complained that Jaguar were not running catalytic converters. Although this was within the rules - no other car ran catalytic converters either - and Jaguar won its appeal (supported by the FIA), they were nonetheless disqualified as they had not - according to the L'Automobile Club de l'Ouest (the French automobile club) - lodged their appeal in time.
An XJ220 would also be used in the Italian GT Championship in the early 1990s, although this car had no factory support.
During the mid-nineties, the Sultan of Brunei and his brother Prince Jefri secretly bought hundreds of sports cars and had them custom appointed by various companies. One of these is a custom Jaguar XJ220 that has been heavily modified by Pininfarina. Modifications included fixed headlights, replacing the pop-up versions originally installed, and a redesigned double-vane rear wing.[2][3]
In 1992 at the Nardò Ring, Martin Brundle drove an XJ220 to 212.3 mph (341.7 km/h). The car's catalytic converters drain the engine of an estimated 60 bhp (45 kW), the catalysts were later disconnected and the rev limiter was increased from 7200 rpm to 7900 rpm in a quest to enable the XJ220 to reach a higher top speed. On a later run with the modifications, Brundle took the XJ220 to 217.1 mph (349.4 km/h) (the equivalent to approximately 223 mph (359 km/h) on a straight road).
XJ220 also held the Nurburgring production car lap record, between 1992 and 2000, at 7:47:37, driven by John Nielsen.
Footage of XJ220C first outing at Silverstone GT, 1993
XJ220C Footage from Le Mans 24 Hours, 1993
| Preceded by Lamborghini Diablo |
Fastest street-legal production car 343 km/h (213 mph) |
Succeeded by McLaren F1 |
| Type | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | 1 | |
| Grand Tourer | XJ-S | XJ-S HE | XJS | XK8 / XKR | XK / XKR | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Compact exec | X-Type | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Executive car | S-Type | XF/XFR | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Luxury | XJ6 S3 | XJ6 (XJ40) | XJ6 | XJ8 / XJR | XJ8 / XJR | XJ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| XJ12 S3 | XJ12 | XJ12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supercar | XJR-15 | XJ220 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Racing | XJRs | C | R1/2/3/4/5 | XKR GT3/GT2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ownership | BL | Independent | Ford | Tata Motors | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||