Jaguar is a brand long known for sporty, luxurious British automobiles, but their attempt two decades ago to bring out a fully-fledged supercar did not quite pan out as expected.  For the reason, the XJ220 is notable in its development and how it changed when the finished product hit the market.  It’s still one of the prettiest cars of the early 1990s, and carries with it a particularly intriguing automotive story.

The XJ220 was concieved in the 1980s, while Jaguar was considering going head-to-head with Ferrari and its ilk.  The name came from Jaguar’s older sports-car naming strategy of “Experminental Jaguar” and a number denoting the top speed of the car in question.  Hence, Jaguar wanted to build a 220mph supercar to top off their entire lineup.  The first version was shown to the public in 1988, at the British Motor Show, to a lot of excited members of the public.  A few orders were placed at the time, for a car that was to have 4WD (like the Porsche 959), antilock brakes (ABS), a reworked version of Jaguar’s V12 engine, and a top speed of 220MPH.  With a starting price of over $500,000, a few orders were placed with Jaguar at the time, and further development began.  However, the finished product wasn’t quite what Jaguar said it would be.

Due to a large number of cost issues, the XJ220 became a completely different car by the time it reached its production stage in 1991.  The Jaguar-spec V12 had been dumped in favor of a twin-turbocharged V6 engine, and the car went to RWD instead of 4WD; the announcement of the car having antilock brakes was also dumped, and the car was launched without them.  Its market shrank as well, as the “Group B” racing class it was designated for had dissolved by the early 1990s.  The price spiked as well, to nearly $700,000.  Now, while half a million is certainly a huge sum, $700,000 at the time would have been twice what my family paid for their house in northern NJ not long after all of this.  As a result, thanks to the change in specs, price spike, and constant production delays, the number of orders for the new XJ220 shrank.  While still a supercar by anyone’s measure, it wasn’t what buyers wanted, making matters even worse for Jaguar at the time.  Launching a super-expensive car in the middle of a significant recession certainly didn’t help either.

Despite all of this, Jaguar still ended up building 281 of these, 61 more than originally planned.  The XJ220 was still a very fast car, packing a scary 542hp (ironically, the XKR-S produces the same amount of hp from its supercharged V8) and a top speed of over 200MPH.  It never hit its intended top speed of 220, but the XJ220 held the speed record for a few years until the famous McLaren F1 stole its crown–a stock XJ220 hit 213MPH, and a modified one cracked 217.  Despite its 20 year old design, the XJ220 still looks overtly ostentatious, and because of its history, these still turn heads today.  Collectors cherish them as well, as the XJ220 is still the only supercar Jaguar has ever produced.

-Al