2003 Haguar X Type 03 Awd All Wheel Drive Non Smoker No Reserve Loaded on 2040-cars

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The Jaguar XKSS, famed ride of King of Cool, is new again

You might remember earlier this year, when we told you Jaguar had confirmed that it would follow up the limited-run of continuation E-Types – completely new, built from scratch classics – with a new run of the impossibly cool XKSS. Those folks in Coventry weren't pulling our leg, because we're here in LA and the brand new XKSS is here, too. Actually, they're 60 years late. If you remember the story we told you when Jaguar said it'd be building these things, there were originally to be 25 cars in total. 16 were built, and the other nine were destroyed in a fire at the Browns Lane factory. Thus, nine original XKSS cars have been missing, and the nine XKSSs that Jaguar will build for a cool GBP1 million each will round out the initial production run. If you're not familiar with the XKSS, here's a little background. Jaguar won Le Mans three times in a row in a factory racer known as the D-Type. After withdrawing factory support in 1956, some privateers continued on with the car, but Jaguar didn't. That left several D-Types sitting about Browns Lane in various degrees of completion. Sir William Lyons had them converted to road spec, which involved adding such niceties as a windshield and passenger door, but otherwise they were not far removed from the Le Man-winning cars they were based on. That meant that they were, to put it mildly, a lot of car for the street. The kind of person an XKSS appealed to was stylish and adventurous, and someone who craved speed. Someone like Steve McQueen, perhaps. His old XKSS is sitting in the Petersen Museum in LA, which not-coincidentally is where Jaguar assembled us to see the wraps pulled off the new one. The "new" XKSSs are generally faithful to the original design, with the bodies hand-formed off bucks that were themselves created off an original XKSS. The body is made out of exotic magnesium, an extremely lightweight metal which is often misunderstood to be extremely flammable. It is, but much more so when it's in little pieces, like shavings; formed into a car body, it's not quite the incendiary device you might think it'd be. Even the processes to form the chassis is the same, such as the bronze welding technique used to bond its tubing. A few concessions to modern safety are fitted, however. There's a fuel cell, partly due to the additional safety it provides but also to better resist the harrowing effects of modern ethanol blend fuel.

Jay Leno gets reacquainted with the Bertone Pirana

Jay Leno gets all manner of vehicles stopping by his garage – some more rare than others, but this one is an entirely unique creation unearthed from another time. It's the Pirana, a one-off commissioned by a British newspaper in the late Sixties that we actually found listed on eBay a few years back. It was built atop a Jaguar E-Type, but with custom bodywork designed by Marcello Gandini and crafted by Bertone. The result looks like a Maserati Ghibli or Lamborghini Espada of the same era, but actually came out just before either, previewing the Italian exotics that would follow from Gandini's pen and Bertone's carrozzeria. The Pirana is now undergoing a complete restoration to bring it back to the original condition in which it appeared at the 1967 London Motor Show, but before the process is complete, Leno shows us around and takes it out on the open road to relive memories of a relic from a bygone era.

2017 Jaguar F-Type SVR is a very fast, very angry kitty

Well, Jaguar has gone and done it. The British marque hit the perfect sweet spot with its newest F-Type, the range-topping SVR, landing squarely in a price/performance segment its butt-engined rivals from Stuttgart aren't playing in. Confirming our previous reports, the new SVR will debut at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show with the latest version of Jaguar Land Rover's 5.0-liter, supercharged V8. With some fettling by the team at JLR's Special Vehicle Operations, the engine has been boosted to 575 horsepower, 25 more than F-Type R. Torque is up from 501 pound-feet to 516 pound-feet, while the 0-60 time has dropped from 3.9 to just 3.5 seconds. And yes, 200 miles per hour is possible with the hardtop – the convertible will only do 195. That means you'll be getting more power, more torque, a quicker run to 60, and a higher top speed than an all-wheel-drive Porsche 911 GTS, but for just $5,000 more, a figure that's quickly erased by Porsche's insane options catalog. The Jag can't stand up to the 0-60 performance of 540-hp, 2.9-second 911 Turbo or the high speed of the 205-mph Turbo S, but with prices for the SVR Coupe starting at just $126,945 ($129,795 for the droptop), it's going to cost anywhere from $33,000 to $62,000 less than the Carreras. With only modest increases in output, it's pretty clear SVO made some bigger changes to score an extra 14 mph on the high end and cut 0.4 seconds off the 0-60 time. At its most basic level, the SVR is 55 pounds lighter than the F-Type R, thanks in large part to the new Inconel titanium exhaust, which cuts 35 pounds of fat (and makes for a more sinister note, we're told). Tack on the optional carbon-ceramic brakes, along with a few carbon-fiber accents, and the overall savings sits around 110 pounds. JLR is also promising faster performance from the eight-speed ZF automatic transmission, which still sends its power to all four wheels. Speaking of which, the new 20-inch forged aluminum alloys are shod in wider Pirelli PZero – 265s in front and 305s in the back, compared to 255/295 on the R model. There is also the usual array of aesthetic and aerodynamic changes. You can check out the more aggressive body work in the full gallery, but know the changes contribute to improved cooling and cut the coefficients of drag and lift by up to 7.5 and 45 percent, respectively, when the adjustable rear wing is in its aerodynamic down position, and 2.5 and 15 percent with the wing up.