Stunning Jaguar XJ220 Supercar Is Today’s Bring a Trailer Find
How is it that the fastest production car of its time isn’t better known?
The fastest production car in the world in its day, the XJ220 is a somewhat overlooked supercar today.
This one is stunning in Le Mans Blue, and it has very low mileage.
It’s fast as heck but not too high-strung to drive regularly.
Launched almost immediately after World War II, Jaguar’s original XK120 burst onto the scene as the world’s fastest production car. Nearly a half-century later, with the likes of Porsche and Ferrari wrestling over top-speed bragging rights, the XK220 grabbed the brass ring again, first running at just over 212 mph and then 217 mph. But while Stuttgart’s 959 and Maranello’s F40 are undisputed icons of their time, Jaguar’s world-beater is somewhat overlooked. It shouldn’t be.
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Check out this example, up for sale on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos). It’s a 1993 Jaguar XJ220 in sumptuous Le Mans Blue, with impeccably low mileage. It has an unusual but pristine provenance, having spent a dozen years hanging out in the middle of a Tokyo skyscraper before being imported into Los Angeles and appearing on an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage. It has certification from Jaguar’s heritage operations, and the equivalent of just 5000 miles on the odometer.
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While it could be argued that British Racing Green is the signature color for an XJ220, Le Mans Blue both looks fantastic here and pays homage to Jaguar’s heritage at France’s greatest endurance race. In the 1950s, Jag’s D-types were the apex predators at the Circuit de la Sarthe, and Jaguar was again on top in 1988, winning Le Mans with the V-12-powered XJR-9 the same year that the prototype XJ220 was revealed.
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That prototype also featured 12-cylinder power, and here’s where the XJ220 story stumbles a little. Instead of a V-12, the production cars got a twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V-6. The engine had genuine rally-car heritage, and today, few people would complain about the V-6 in a Ferrari 296 GTB. But, in the early 1990s, six cylinders was a half dozen too few to be a proper exotic.
However, it was certainly powerful enough to beat Ferrari and Porsche. In this application, the twin-turbo V-6 makes 542 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque. Those are respectable figures today, and in a time when a 911 Turbo made do with nearly 200 fewer ponies, the XJ220 was a genuine monster. The transmission is a five-speed manual, sending power to the rear wheels only.
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The production model was developed with veteran Jaguar racing firm Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), which resulted in some hijinks. Looking for a test bed to sort out the Group B-spec V-6 for road use, TWR installed the engine in the middle of a Ford Transit that had formerly been used as a parts van by the Benetton F1 team. For many years afterward, this white Transit was a perennial crowd favorite at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it went up the hill at blistering pace, complete with a ladder strapped to the roof.
This XJ220’s aluminum bodywork is considerably more elegant than a workaday Ford van’s, and the design has aged beautifully. The staggered-width wheels are 17-inch up front and 18 inches in the rear, and the latter wear some seriously meaty Bridgestone Potenzas. Brakes are from AP Racing, with four-piston calipers at all four corners to shed that considerable top speed.
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The gray interior is pure 1990s soft-edged design and comes with features including a trunk-mounted CD player for your UB40 and Peter Gabriel discs. While not quite as technologically advanced as the Porsche 959, the XJ220 is far more comfortable on the road than its F40 rival, and could conceivably be used as a Grand Tourer. Monterey’s Car Week has just ended, but you could hardly do better than rolling up to next year’s event in this car.
It’s not the obvious vintage supercar choice, but it’s a great one. The XJ220 possibly never got quite the respect it deserved when new, but it’s a stunner with performance to match the looks. As Jaguar looks to rebrand, it would do well to remember machines like this.
The auction ends on September 5.
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Lettermark
Brendan McAleer
Contributing Editor
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
