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Jaguar to expand Jaguar XKR-S GT production run?

According to a report in Autocar, demand for the Jaguar XKR-S GT is such that the English company could nearly double production from 30 to 50 cars. Such inflation can often incense those have already put deposits down, worried that they've both been lied to about the potentially diminished values of their cars, but Jaguar has made the announcement barely a day after the XKR-S GT was revealed and 50 still isn't that many vehicles.
Nothing in the Autocar report indicates the additional examples will not come to America, making the 500-horsepower superfast coupe a treat we can still call all our own. Jaguar didn't add horsepower but instead honed other aspects of the car to produce a GT that can lap the 'Ring nearly as quickly as a Ferrari 458 Italia, and the world should be the beneficiary, the company's brand director saying, "The real beauty of this project has been that it has extended our understanding of the elements involved in making a car go so fast, and that will feed back into all our road car programs." Sounds good to us.

Jay Leno hits the road in a 1951 Jaguar XK 120 Hot Rod

The 1951 Jaguar XK120 featured in this episode of Jay Leno's Garage might look vaguely like a classic Jag roadster at first, but underneath this cat is something completely different. It was built by Leno's buddy Jason Len of XK's Unlimited when he grew tired of keeping these convertibles stock, and this aluminum-bodied beast was the result. Practically the only major Jaguar part left is the engine. It's a tuned 3.8-liter inline six from an E-Type with Weber carbs that makes an estimated 300 horsepower out of some gorgeous side-exit exhausts. The mill is backed up to a BorgWarner five-speed manual. However, the big surprise is the chassis. In place of Jag's original solution, Len has a custom tubular space frame that he claims sheds some 1,000 pounds over the stock example. There are still some classic Jaguar touches left, though, such as the fin over the driver's head that is reminiscent of the D-Type, and both the wheels and gauges are replicas based on that classic racer. Of course the best part is watching Jay drive this Jag hot rod. This big cat really knows how to purr.

Jaguar Land Rover says half its models will be hybrids or all-electric by 2020

Neither Jaguar nor Land Rover has ever been mistaken for big-time green-car brands, but their parent company is trying to change that. Jaguar Land Rover looks to have as many as half of its models be of the hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or battery-electric variety by 2020, CEO Ralf Speth said at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week. Speth made the announcement while showing off the I-Pace concept compact crossover. The green-car expansion would mark a natural extension of Jaguar Land Rover's decision last year to double the headcount in its advanced-engineering department. As for the five-seat I-Pace, that model will be Jaguar Land Rover's first production electric vehicle when it starts sales in 2018. The car will have a 90-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that will deliver a single-charge range of about 220 miles. Boasting more than 400 horsepower, the car will also be able to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about four seconds. What's also notable is that Jaguar says the model has been designed to be an electric vehicle from the ground up, and hasn't been converted from the platform of an existing model. Of course, Jaguar late last year said it would enter a team in the FIA Formula E electric-vehicle open-wheel racing circuit, so the British badge has made recent noise about upping its green-car quotient. As for the I-Pace, the automaker hasn't revealed pricing on the model, but it's safe to say that it will be quite high. Check out a three-minute video of Speth's presentation here. Related Video: