Thursday, February 23, 2012

Best Sport Car - Jaguar XJ220

The Jaguar XJ220 is a mid-engined supercar produced by Jaguar in collaboration with Tom Walkinshaw Racing as Jaguar Sport between 1992 and 1994. It held the record for the highest top speed of a production car (350 km/h, 217 mph) (although it was modified from standard to achieve this), until the arrival of the McLaren F1 in 1994. The XJ220 is unrelated to other XJ models, despite sharing the "XJ" prefix.

In the 1980s, Jaguar's chief engineer Jim Randle, as part of an informal group called "The Saturday Club", began work on a concept car, code-named XJ220, which - if put into production - could compete in a potential new Group B racing category. He saw it as competition for cars such as the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959 and wanted to re-capture the glory years of Jaguar racing from the 50s and 60s. He envisioned what was essentially an updated XJ13 - a lightweight two-seater with a powerful mid-mounted V12 engine. Randle expanded on the idea by settling on all-wheel drive and an integral safety-cage so the car could be safely raced at extremely high speeds.