The High Power Purring Of The Jaguar
The Jaguar XJ220 was entered in the motor show of 1988 and took the crowds by storm with disbelief and this car turned out to become the fastest car on the road at that time and it remained in this position until 1994 until the appearance of the McLaren F1 although today it still remains in the top ten fastest cars in the world.
What was remarkable about this car was how the idea was brought about. An out of hours group of Jaguar employees, unofficially called the Saturday club who worked on projects of their own personal creation and so from this one off prototype that appeared at the NEC in 1988, Jaguar then took on the project of developing it further in order to satisfy the required specifications in order to make it a production car.
One of the main factors that had to be changed was its huge V12 engine which because of its size, weight and emissions meant it would take it outside the regulations required in order for it to be a legal street car and so in order to achieve this status, a V6 engine was used which was lighter in weight and kept the engine’s emissions within the required limits. It was a real monster with its Twin-Turbo V6 quad cam which gave it massive power of 542bhp @ 7000rpm. This gave it a performance level of 0-60 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds and fuel consumption at a constant motorway speed of 75 miles per hour of which is very nearly 27 miles per gallon and driving around town drags it down to just over 16 miles per gallon Now the overall weight of the car was lighter, this then created an additional problem of how to keep the car firmly on the road at high speeds and this was mainly achieved using the design of the body. All of this proved a winning combination such that Jaguar’s initial announcement that they were looking to make between 220 and 350 of these cars as a maximum turned out to be well short of the demand which was quickly apparent. Within 2 days of announcing this production figure the influx of orders surpassed this maximum figure by several hundred per cent.
Although it could achieve incredibly high speeds, the overall body width of the car was a surprisingly 7 ft wide and this turned out to be the widest car jaguar have actually ever created.
Whilst road testing the car average speeds of 208 miles per hour were achieved but at one point it achieved a staggering maximum speed of 212 miles per hour which then gave it the title as the fastest car in the world at that time.
Another important feature apart from the stylish and superb aero dynamic body is its luxurious interior incorporating wall to wall luxury soft leather which gives it that classy rich feel one always seems to have when sitting in a jaguar car.