The Jaguar XJ220 is a two-seat supercar produced by British luxury car manufacturer Jaguar from 1992 until 1994, in collaboration with the specialist automotive and race engineering company Tom Walkinshaw Racing. The XJ220 (with catalytic converter removed) recorded a top speed of during testing by Jaguar at the Nardo test track in Italy. This made it the fastest production car from 1992 to 1993. According to Jaguar, an XJ220 prototype managed a Nürburgring lap time of 7:46.36 in 1991 which was faster than any production car lap time before it.
The XJ220 was developed from a V12-engined 4-wheel drive concept car designed by an informal group of Jaguar employees working in their spare time. The group wished to create a modern version of the successful Jaguar 24 Hours of Le Mans racing cars of the 1950s and 1960s that could be entered into FIA Group B competitions. The XJ220 made use of engineering work undertaken for Jaguar's then current racing car family.
The initial XJ220 concept car was unveiled to the public at the 1988 British International Motor Show, held in Birmingham, England. Its positive reception prompted Jaguar to put the car into production. Approximately 281 deposits of £50,000 each were taken and deliveries were planned for 1992.
Engineering and emissions requirements resulted in significant changes to the specification of the XJ220, most notably the replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine by a turbocharged V6 engine. The changes to the specification and a collapse in the demand of high performance cars brought about by the early 1990s recession resulted in many buyers choosing not to exercise their purchase options. A total of just 275 cars were produced by the time production ended, each with a retail price of £470,000 in 1992, making it one of the most expensive cars at that time.
Conception Racing team owner Tom Walkinshaw approached Jaguar executives and encouraged the company to enter the XJS into the 1981 European Touring Car Championship. The partnership succeeded in winning the competition in 1983. Jaguar had started to provide factory support to racing team Group 44 Racing, who were using the Jaguar-engined XJR-5 in the IMSA GT Championship, supplying V12 engines from 1983 onwards and supporting a Le Mans entry in 1984. Tom Walkinshaw and Jaguar agreed to enter the FIA Group C World Sportscar Championship and developed the XJR-6, which was powered by the same Jaguar V12 engine used by Group 44 Racing. The car was launched during the 1985 season.
TWR took over the IMSA GT Championship operation in 1988 and one model – XJR-9 – was launched to compete in both series. The XJR-9, which retained the Jaguar V12 engine, went on to win the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Sportscar Championship in the same year. The poor fuel consumption of the Jaguar V12 combined with new rules restricting refueling during races, forced the replacement of the V12 engine in the successors to the XJR-9, the XJR-10 and XJR-11. The normally aspirated Austin Rover V64V engine, designed for the MG Metro 6R4 had recently been made redundant due to the Group B rally ban in 1987 and the design rights were for sale. The compact, lightweight and fuel efficient nature of the small-displacement, turbocharged engine was investigated by TWR. They considered it an ideal basis for a new engine to power the XJR-10 and purchased the design rights from Austin Rover Group.
Jaguar and their Director of Engineering, Jim Randle, felt these racing cars were too far removed from the product available to the general public, especially with the rule changes that mandated the replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine in the forthcoming XJR-10 and XJR-11 racing cars. Therefore, a project was initiated to design and build a car capable of winning Le Mans "in house", just as the C-Type and D-Type had done. The groundwork for the project was undertaken by Randle over Christmas 1987, when he produced a 1:4 scale cardboard model of a potential Group B racing car.
The cardboard model was taken into the Jaguar styling studio and two mock-ups were produced. One was said to be reminiscent of the Porsche 956, the other took elements of the then current XJ41 project and Malcolm Sayer's work on the stillborn XJ13 racing car. The second design, by Keith Helfet, was chosen as it was "more obviously Jaguar in its look".
The project still had no official support, leaving Randle no option but to put together a team of volunteers to work evenings and weekends in their own time. The team came to be known as "The Saturday Club" and consisted of twelve volunteers. To justify the resources consumed by the project, the XJ220 needed to provide meaningful data to the engineers on handling, aerodynamics – particularly at high speeds – and aluminium structures. These requirements, together with FIA racing regulations and various government regulations governing car design and safety, influenced the overall design and engineering direction of the car.
Concept car
The FIA Group B regulations steered the concept towards a mid-engine, all-wheel-drive layout, with a Jaguar V12 engine as the power source. The concept car was designed and built at very little cost to Jaguar, as Randle called in favours from component suppliers and engineering companies he and Jaguar had worked with in the past. In return he offered public recognition for their assistance and dangled the possibility of future contracts from Jaguar.
The name XJ220 was chosen as a continuation of the naming of the XK120, which referred to the top speed of the model in miles per hour. The concept car had a targeted top speed of so the name became XJ220. The XK120, like the XJ220, was an aluminium-bodied sports car and when launched was the fastest production car in the world.
Engine and transmission Jaguar's engine designer Walter Hassan had previously developed a 48-valve variant of their V12 engine specifically for motorsport use. It featured a double overhead camshaft layout with four valves per cylinder, compared with the single overhead camshaft and two valves per cylinder of the production engine, which was used in the XJ and XJS models at the time.
TWR had manufactured a number of these racing V12 engines during the 1980s and they had been raced competitively, with a 7-litre version of this engine featuring in the Le Mans-winning XJR-9. Five of these engines still existed, all of which were fitted with dry sump lubrication. One of five of these engines was chosen and considered to be especially useful as the dry sump would lower the vehicle's centre of gravity. The displacement of the V12 was set at 6.2 litres (6,222 cc) for the XJ220. The engine fitted to the XJ220 concept had titanium connecting rods.
Jaguar had little experience with four-wheel drive systems at the time, having previously only produced rear-wheel drive cars. Randle approached Tony Rolt's company, FF Developments to design the transmission and four-wheel drive system for the XJ220, with Rolt's son Stuart running the project. Tony Rolt was the Technical Director of Ferguson Research, where he was heavily involved in the design of the four-wheel drive system used in the Jensen FF, the first sports car to be fitted with such a system. Tony Rolt also had a long involvement with Jaguar, winning the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans with the factory works team driving the C-Type.
The mid-mounted engine complicated the design of the four-wheel drive system and an innovative solution was needed to get power from the mid-mounted rear engine to the front wheels. The chosen design took the front-wheel drive from the central differential on the rear transaxle and sent it through the V in the centre of the engine using a quill drive, before joining an inverted differential. The clutch was a twin-plate unit designed by AP Racing.
Bodywork and interior The design brief for the exterior restricted the use of aerodynamic aids and aimed for a simple yet clean and functional body similar to classic Jaguar sports cars, such as the D-Type and E-Type. Drag and lift were limited at the envisioned ground clearance for road use, but the design allowed for additional downforce when the car was set up for racing. The body produced around of downforce at . The design was also intended to have a variable rear wing that folded into the bodywork at lower speeds. Aerodynamic work was undertaken at the Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel using a 1:4 scale model, as the project was unable to budget for a full-scale mock-up.
The bodywork for the concept car displayed in 1988 was hand built from aluminium by Park Sheet Metal, a specialist automotive engineering company that manufactures concept cars and low-volume niche models for various manufacturers, including Bentley. QCR Motors LTD undertook final painting of the body in silver. The concept also featured electrically operated scissor doors and a transparent engine cover to show off the V12 engine.
The concept car had a Connolly Leather-trimmed interior trimmed by Callow & Maddox and was fitted with front and rear heated windscreens, electric windows, air conditioning, heated electrically adjustable seats and an Alpine CD player. The dashboard was supplied by Veglia.
Chassis The chassis was manufactured from aluminium using Alcan's bonded aluminium structure vehicle technology (ASVT) and had a wheelbase of . The design for the chassis featured rear wheel steering and packaged the fuel tank behind the centre bulkhead. Suspension design largely focused on road use, but a good compromise for racing use was achieved and the suspension height was adjustable. The concept car was fitted with a four-channel anti-lock braking system.
The concept car was larger than the production model at in length and was wide. It weighed .
Launch The concept car was completed in the early hours of 18 October 1988, the day it was due to be unveiled at the British International Motor Show, being held at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham. The vehicle was completed at 03:00 GMT, moved to Jaguar's stand at 06:00 GMT and unveiled at 11:00 GMT.
Jaguar's marketing department had allocated space on their stand at the motor show for the XJ220, but had not seen the vehicle until its arrival. Jaguar chairman John Egan and Roger Putnam, who was in charge of Jaguar's racing activities, were shown the vehicle the week before the motor show and signed off on the concept, allowing its unveiling. The car received an overwhelmingly positive reception by public and press and a number of wealthy Jaguar enthusiasts handed over blank cheques to secure a purchase option should the XJ220 concept go into production. Ferrari's display of their F40 flagship model at the same event was overshadowed, as an estimated 90,000 additional visitors came to see the XJ220.
The XJ220 was not initially intended to be a production car, but following the reception of the concept and financial interest from serious buyers, a feasibility study was carried out by teams from TWR and Jaguar. The conclusion was that such a car would be technically feasible (subject to engineering changes) and that it would be financially viable. The announcement of a limited production run of 220 to 350 cars was made on 20 December 1989. The list price on 1 January 1990 was £290,000 exclusive of value-added tax (VAT), options and delivery charges, but by 1992 that had increased considerably owing to indexation of contracts. Deposits of £50,000 exclusive of (VAT) were taken from around 281 customers. First deliveries were planned for mid-1992.
Production version