Jaguar XJR:

on the road again

The XJR is one hell of a good-looking car
 

 

The excellent XJ40.com site caters also for X300/X306 etc, and it's a GREAT Forum. Recommended!

The interior looks quite nice in a sporty way

Big Cats look great in black

The Jaguar XJR (2nd series, 1994-1997) History

From the excellent 'XJR Evolution of the species' web page

The Jaguar XJR, second generation, was the first car built by Jaguar to employ a supercharger in a mass produced vehicle. This makes sense when you discover that the model name ‘XJ’ was originally used to denote “Experimental Jaguar” saloon. Following on the reputation as the fastest 4-door, production saloon, the supercharged XJR was introduced as a high performance edition of the XJ series saloon. Power came from an updated version of Jaguars proven 4.0 litre in line six and had 322hp @ 5,000rpm and 377ft. lbs of torque @ 3,050rpm. This power would accelerate the 4,134lb car from 0-60mph in 6.6 secs. Top speed was limited to 155mph. This was the only XJR available (since the JaguarSport) in all generations to offer a manual transmission and that car would do 0-60 in 5.9 secs. In comparison, Audi’s best saloon did about 6.8 0-60, BMW’s M5 was pulling about 6.2 0-60 and Mercedes E420 could only muster a 7.1 0-60. Although these times are all comparable, the Jaguar XJR had a class and character about it that to this day is unmatched by the competition and you’d have to spend a lot more money to match it’s performance. The downsides, if you want to call them that, were that the Jaguar XJR has always been criticized for it’s rear seat interior and boot space, but the trade off came with a low slung aggressive look that just can not be equalled.
Handling was managed by a great compromising suspension that offered good handling and a superior level of comfort and luxury. Front suspension are unequal length wishbones, anti-dive and coil springs. The rear featured double wishbones, drive shafts as upper links, anti-squat and coil springs. Although this car may not have been ‘track ready’ it didn’t take much by its’ owners to be competent on track and still remain very comfortable on the way home.
This second generation XJR was part of Jaguars’ second complete series under Ford Motor Company ownership and finally brought with that merger, very comparable reliability. These cars were some of the most rare in Jaguar XJR production, were only built for 4 years and, due to Jaguars lingering reputation, can be had for a very good price. These cars can be modified very easily to produce in excess of 400hp and still be very reliable.

Second Generation Production Data 1994-1997

Total second gen. XJR build run was 6,547 cars out of 92,038 XJ series X300 cars built. Yes, these cars are rare too.

1994 - 1,340
1995 - 2,741
1996 - 2,148
1997 - 318

Exterior colours available for second generation cars were as follows;

Glacier White - only to 1996
Spindrift White
Signal Red - 1997 first year
Anthracite- to 1996, this is metallic black, not the same as black, which was used on other cars
Kingfisher Blue
Rose Bronze
Flamenco Red
Morocco Red - 1997
Cabernet- to 1996
Jade Green - 1997
Sherwood Green
Silver Frost
Topaz
Steel
Turquoise - exclusive XJR colour, only to 1996
Aquamarine - exclusive XJR colour, 1997
Antigua Blue - exclusive XJR colour

Interior colours available for second generation cars were as follows;

Oatmeal (fabric)
Coffee (fabric)
Nimbus Grey (fabric)
Regatta Blue (fabric)
Black Marble Sport/Warm Charcoal
Grey Marble Sport/Oatmeal
Grey Marble Sport/Nimbus Grey
Parchment
Cream
Cream Sport
Nimbus Grey
Nimbus Grey Sport
Coffee
Oatmeal
Oatmeal Sport
Regatta Blue (fabric)
Warm Charcoal

Interior colours are in leather unless noted as fabric, and yes, XJR’s could be ordered with fabric. Only first and second gen. cars were ever built with fabric interiors. All first and second gen. cars had Grey Maple veneers.

These are colours offered by Jaguar for the XJ series 1994-1997 X300 cars, however unless noted, only the exclusive XJR colours can be determined by fact that they actually built an XJR in that colour because there is no data available as to how many were built in each colour, each year. This being said, mathematically it is safe to say that there are probably just a few hundred around in colours like Turquoise and Aquamarine because these colours only ran for limited time during the series.

2 August 2017: a new wheel bearing

Technical details, size etc

More technical details

Performance

Engine torque/Power

A nice ad (XJ)

20 YEARS OF CLARKSON: JAGUAR XJR REVIEW (1995)
La storia della Jaguar XJR
 

Felix Meister guida la Jaguar XJ-R