MODEL PROFILE
The first saloon car to bear the XJR name might not have been supercharged, but that doesn’t stop it being a true sports saloon
TO SAY the company was known for its sports saloons, Jaguar by the 1980s had settled into making cars that were targeted more toward the fat cat than the cool cat. The XJ6 had become rather more golf club than squash club, and the XJ-S – while it retained some sporting image – appealed to exactly the same buyers as the E-Type had. Not the same social type, but the very same people, 20 years on and comfortably into late middle age.
But Tom Walkinshaw felt that Jaguar could regain the image it had had. Described by Jaguar’s former chair Sir John Egan in his 2015 autobiography Saving Jaguar as ”part tornado, part rugby frontrow forward and part mystical leprechaun”, Walkinshaw had been competing in the BTCC since 1974 when he won his class in a Ford-supplied Capri.
In 1981, he approached Jaguar with a proposition – he could win the European Touring Car Championship in an XJ-S if they would sponsor the project. By 1982 he took a win and the sponsorships increased – by 1984 that had become victory in the driver’s championship. Tom Walkinshaw would also help Jaguar win the World Sports Car Championship in 1987, 1988 and 1991.
But in 1984 he had begun to capitalise on his racing victories by offering upgrades for Jaguar road cars, sold under the TWR JaguarSport brand. Bigger wheels, blueprinted engines, better exhausts, suspension and steering tweaks sharpened up the XJ-S and TWR expanded into providing similar options for the Series 3 and subsequent XJ40 saloons. Sales were through just 14 approved Jaguar dealers, and the TWR additions were priced separately.
By 1988 Jaguar had realised there could be a real market for this type of upgrade, and a subsidiary company called JaguarSport Ltd was set up at a cost of £5million as a 50/50 joint venture between TWR and Jaguar, with Sir John Egan as Chairman and Tom Walkinshaw in overall charge as Managing Director.
“The principal aim,” said Walkinshaw in Autocar’s 18 May 1988 issue, “will be to produce limited volumes of uniquely styled, high performance cars, which will help broaden the marque’s appeal to customers who require their Jaguars to have more overt sporting characteristics. Eventually we aim to sell worldwide and have a capacity of around 2500 JaguarSport cars each year.” John Egan supported this, as “a logical development of our highly successful motorsport relationship. It will enable us to apply the experience we have gained on the world’s racing circuits to develop Jaguars aimed at the more specialised requirements of the enthusiast.”
As before, cars would be shipped from Jaguar’s Browns Lane base to TWR in Bloxham, Oxfordshire and would be converted into roadg
