It’s almost ten years ago, when I bought my vintage Jaguar XJS. And in two years time it will turn 30, thus gain official classic status. That means a huge drop in insurance and tax fees. It’s a grand tourer coupe with an incredibly smooth running V12 engine, sporting 294 horsepower. Because it shares the same comfort suspension with the XJ saloon, the regular version is not so great for racing.
I learned long ago, that there were some XJS used for racing. I saw reports of increasing the displacement from 5.3 to 10 lites or mounting a dual compressor, thus reaching 1’000 horsepower. But only when reading the latest issue of the JDCS Tribune, I learned that the XJS was in fact Jaguar’s most successful racing car. When you read about Jaguar racing cars, what you usually find, are the legendary XK120 to XK150, C-Type, D-Type, the Silk-cut cars, and maybe something about the XJ13. There are some cool old looking videos on youtube.
But the reason I write about all this is that I was, after years of absence, finally driving with the Jaguar driver’s club again. Levin, my older son, is the biggest fan of cars that I know, and he was looking forward to this day for a month. He was totally excited seeing all these beautiful cars. And during the drive he observed every car he could see, following them and trying to identify.
Leave a Reply