Jaguar XJR Review

Jaguar XJR

Jaguar quotes a 0-60 mph time of 5 seconds, a quick look at the second hand on my co-testers watch would suggest that this is perfectly possible. Floor the throttle and there is a slight delay, whilst the gearbox changes down, then there is simply a wall of power matched to the wonderful and addictive whine of the supercharger. Acceleration is law braking, leaving other motorists bewildered, so be warned some people may react in a negative way to XJR’s prowess.

Although the XJR is limited electronically to 155 mph, we understand that there is another 30 or so miles per hour left in reserve.

The Six Speed ‘J’ gate automatic gearbox, is beginning to show its age, the changes remain a smooth as ever, but we would prefer to have manual control over our gears. You cannot manually change gear as you can in the Jaguar XK; you are only able to hold the car in gears using the ‘J’ gate, which is a bit of a shame. There is a sports mode which hangs on to the gears for a little bit longer before changing up; our car spent 80% of its time simply in drive.

Fuel consumption - during everyday driving we achieving 19.2 mpg - ‘A’ and ‘B’ road cruising and this improved to 24 mpg, busy motorway driving 27.2 mpg and on a 120 mile motorway trip at night we were surprised to hit 33.2 mpg - not as bad as we thought from a supercharged 400 bhp V8, which can be attributed to its weight.

How It Drove - Ride/Handling

The Jaguar XJR rides on a self levelling air suspension set up which automatically adapts the dampers and suspension to the prevailing road conditions, through Jaguar’s pioneering Computer Active Technology Suspension (CATS). It works extremely well, cushioning you from the most evil of potholes and even irons out those irritating speed humps that blight our roads. The air suspension can automatically lower the ride height at speed to improve stability and increase aerodynamic efficiency.

You can corner at quite high speeds and although body roll is evident it is very controlled, levels of grip always remains astonishing high. Although you do have to consider the girth of the XJR on country roads, which at first can seem intimidating but once used to positioning the Jaguar on your favourite ‘B’ roads can be quite fun.

The speed sensitive power steering is very good, with 2.8 turns lock to lock you can really throw the car around, with great feedback. The up rated brakes make very short work of stopping the XJR.

The XJR is protected by Dynamic Stability Control, which detects and responds to both oversteer and understeer and is a significant advance on previous generations. The traction control and DSC can be switched off if so desired but we found it rarely intervened, which is a testament to the stability of the XJR.