Jaguar XJ220 - Concept Car

Concept Car

The concept car used a quad-cam 6.2-litre version of Jaguar's V12 engine, left over from a development project to test the viability of a quad-cam in the XJR-9 racer. The all-wheel-drive system was produced by FF Developments, who had experience with such systems going back to the 1960s and the Jensen FF. The car was styled by Keith Helfet and included scissor-style doors similar to those in use by Lamborghini. The name "XJ220" was assigned as a reference to the targeted top speed of 220 mph (350 km/h).

XJ220 was never intended to be a production car; it was purely a demonstration, like so many concept cars, of the outstanding abilities of Jaguar's design and engineering team. However, following its unveiling at the British Motor Show at Birmingham in 1988 to overwhelming acclaim, demand for the car was so great that a feasibility study was carried out by Jaguar to see if the car could be made production worthy. TWR completed the study and confirmed that the car was viable, with the following specification: V6 twin turbo racing engine from the then current Jaguar Group C cars; 2-wheel drive, rather than 4-wheel drive; slightly revised body design, being shorter and with conventional doors.

The car was officially announced in 1989 with the revised specification and a price of £361,000 ($580,000 USD). Prospective buyers were asked to put up a deposit of £50,000 (US$80,000) to be put on the waiting list for delivery. Because Jaguar promised to limit production to 350 units, many of those who put deposits on the cars were speculators who intended to sell the car at an immediate profit. This would become a serious problem for Jaguar when the 1992 recession took hold. Jaguar took 1,500 orders for the car in a frenzy of bidding (taking £17m in deposits in one day) and had to whittle the order book down to just the 350 promised, which it did on the basis of 'first come, first served'.