MODIFIED
We find a neatly upgraded XKR which takes inspiration from Jaguar’s own back catalogue
AFTER THE reams of textwhich have been published around the automotive world this year commemorating the centenary of Jaguar Cars, you could probably be forgiven for feeling pretty well clued-up on the firm’s motorsport history. From XKs powering to victory in 1950s European rallying to C-Types at Le Mans and on through the wide-arched XJ-C to the XJR racers of the modern era, it’s all pretty well documented.
What you won’t have read too much about though is Jaguar’s place in the history of drag racing but this month we’ve been lucky enough to meet a man who took Jaguar’s XK engine to the top of the tree in a sport more often dominated by American iron. And as you can see from our photos, Brian Thomas is still very much in tune with the idea of going very fast behind a Jaguar engine.
Brian’s enthusiasm for Jaguar goes right back to his teenage years when as a young apprentice fabricator welder one of his duties was to clean the boss’s Mk2 twice weekly. That the car’s owner kept a set of winter studded tyres in the stores and frequently campaigned the car in the Monte Carlo rally illustrated the potential of the XK engine, something Brian would remember a good few years later.
A decade later he found himself attending a drag racing meet at Santa Pod Raceway where he noticed that many of the entrants were using Jaguar straight-six engines. It may seem like an odd choice these days but those of us who can still recall the 1970s will remember just how common time-expired Jaguar saloons were back then, littering both the free ads and the oily mud of your local breakers. They were also cheap enough for budgetminded competitors to buy an entire car just for the engine, which responded well to basic tuning and in a suitably lightweight chassis made for a competitive entry.
Our man was quickly hooked on the sport and after a couple of years spectating, decided to build his own car. “It was a bit of a flying bedstead,” he laughs, but as he gained experience in building and driving Jaguar-powered racers, the quarter-mile times started to tumble. You can read the full story in our side panel but ultimately Brian rose to the top of the sport in the UK thanks to the XK engine, which means it’s unsurprising that in recent years there’s generally been a Jaguar road car on the driveway at home.
These have included X-Types in both 2.5 and 3-litre forms, plus a 3-litre S-Type and it was while taking the latter for a service that he was struck by the sight of an XKR in the showroom.
What he didn’t realise at the time was that this was one of the limitededition XKR400 cars, built to c
