The Ferrari Testarossa is 40, so we are having a birthday party without it
The red arrow with the louvred flanks is 40 years-old in 2024. But it’s not holding the monopoly on sexy Italian birthday parties this year. Nope, the Lamborghini Countach, grand-daddy of the modern hypercar, is also celebrating a notable number. Fifty years for the Lamborghini in fact. Yes, you read that correctly – 50 years that it has been gracing the walls of petrolheaded teenagers. Two huge anniversaries, then, for two era defining performance cars. You would definitely want both in your Top Trumps hand, but would you want them on your driveway? Can you get as much bang for a lot less buck?
Both the Fezzer and the Lambo reach sixty miles per hour well before the second hand clicks over to six, but if you don’t have six figures to spend, is there a way to enjoy those stimulating Gs for a smaller number of Gs? Come this way, as we completely ignore the inevitable birthday celebrations going on elsewhere. This is the people’s party. Four cars that can match the famous two for pace, but which won’t require you to become a premiership footballer or drugs baron to own one.
JAGUAR XJR DANNY HOPKINS
ENGINE 3996CC/V8/QOHC POWER 370BHP@6150RPM TORQUE 387LB FT@3600RPM GEARBOX 4-SPEED AUTO TOP SPEED 155MPH (LIMITED) 0-60MPH 5.6SEC FUEL ECONOMY 20MPG
There’s nothing quite like a big car that goes fast. Seriously, you can feel it – it’s a special kind of speed. On hard acceleration, the sheer bulk feels like a supertanker being dropped off a cliff. It is completely intoxicating – there’s something magnificent about strapping yourself inside 1775kg of charming meatheadedness and catapulting yourself at the horizon. I’m clearly not alone because Jaguar’s XJR V8 left showrooms with pleasing regularity, with over 15,000 meeting new customers between 1997 and 2003. I would have bought one for the noise alone… it’s like someone setting of a very tuneful bomb a couple of miles away.
It's a hooligan then, but with exquisite taste. I am sitting in a beautifully tailored interior that, in 1997, was all-new compared to that of the previous X300 (which itself was really a tarted up XJ40 interior). Time to set those muffled explosions off under the bonnet.
The XJR is powered by the supercharged version of Jaguar’s 4-litre V8 and is capable of reaching 60mph from a standstill in 5.6 seconds, with an electronically limited top speed of 155mph. You get a quiet hint of this as the eight tubes burble into life. Engage the Mercedes sourced auto ’box and forward motion is immediate, go anywhere near the pedal on the right and the animal is unleashed. It is just SO fast.
Yet from the outside, the uninitiated would never know. Like the standard Sport model, the XJR has a body-coloured radiator grille surround but with a s
