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Jaguar Project 7 Concept

The Jaguar Project 7 Concept debuted at the Goodwood Festival of Speed just last month. But unlike most concepts, which serve only to collect fingerprints on a stage, the track-ready one-seater spent its days barreling past the hillclimb crowds with Mike Cross, chief engineer of vehicle integrity at Jaguar, beaming behind its right-hand-drive steering wheel. What's more, the powers that be at Jaguar even let yours truly drive the Project 7 during the Concurs d'Elegance festivities at Pebble Beach last week.
Built on an all-aluminum V8 F-Type chassis with modified suspension, the Project 7 (a name acknowledging Jaguar's seven Le Mans wins between 1951-1990) is best thought of as an F-Type masquerading as a D-Type. The two-door is fitted with a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 good for 550 horsepower (no pictures as Jaguar wouldn't allow us to open the hood). An eight-speed automatic, with a torque converter, sends the power the rear wheels, allowing the single-seat roadster to crack the 60-mph benchmark in just over four seconds.
Modifications to the bodywork include a new lowered windshield, carbon-fiber aerodynamics and a rear fairing with integrated rollover hoop. The driving position has also been lowered by more than an inch, allowing the sole occupant to not only escape the airflow, but take advantage of a lower center of gravity.

Jaguar Heritage to auction off part of its classic-car collection

A few years back it was reported that Jaguar Land Rover had purchased the James Hull classic car collection in its entirety. The collection is beyond significant, as it was at the time of sale the biggest single collection of British cars in the world and the largest private car collection in the UK. Consisting of 543 cars, it ranged from the mundane to the obscure, including some extremely rare prototypes. There were 130 Jaguars, for example, from the C-type to the D-type to the XKSS. When the cars were put up for sale in 2014, the asking price was a not-insubstantial $170 million. JLR didn't reveal how much it spent to buy the cars, but now it seems the carmaker is about to recoup some of those costs. At least 50 cars from the collection will be sold by auction house Brightwells, as part of the Affordable Classics at Bicester sale on March 21; some reports have said JLR would be eventually offloading as many as 100 cars. Looking at the listing, there are some definite gems in there. Not all cars are British, as there are Citroens, Mercedes-Benzes, a Fiat and a Goggomobil. Jaguars and Land Rovers are notably absent from Brightwells' listing, which we take as a clue that the sale will consist of cars not crucial to JLR's wellbeing and heritage. That said, for a lover of British cars there's a possibility to grab something truly interesting: For example, the Reliant Scimitar Ferguson 4x4 Prototype must be worth preserving. A 4WD pioneer also known for Massey-Ferguson tractors, Ferguson fitted its system in Jensens as well as a prototype 4WD Mustang in the 1960s. The fiberglass-bodied Reliant sports car is an interesting sidenote in Ferguson's history. Then there's a Vauxhall Chevette 2300 HS, which is a veritable rally-bred RWD hot hatch in comparison to the American market Chevrolet Chevette, its distant relative. On the hot hatch front, there are also Metro and Maestro turbos, which offer plenty of poke in a light, boxy body. Or if you view the internet's popular "Worst Cars Ever Made" lists as shopping lists, you could build your own collection of slightly dodgy cars: Start with the unfortunate-looking Vanden Plas Allegro, continue to the malaise-tastic Morris Ital Camper, and finish it off with a late-model Lada Riva wagon from the mid-1990s. Some cars are in tip-top shape, and some are best seen as restoration projects, like the very pretty Borgward Isabella coupe from 1960.

2017 Jaguar XE 20d Quick Spin

Base models rarely get their due in the press. Big-engine, high-horsepower variants get all the headlines, but the junior version is what sells in volume. We're just as guilty here at Autoblog, with both a first and second drive of the Jaguar XE in supercharged V6 guise, and barely a mention of the entry-level, 2.0-liter diesel. So, in Perd Hapley style, the Jaguar XE diesel is the model of the Jaguar XE we're going to discuss. Yes, the volume model of the Jaguar XE is a diesel, at least for now. A turbocharged 2.0-liter gas engine, wearing the 25t badge, will arrive after the XE's early 2016 on-sale date. Oil-burners and volume are not a thing in the United States, except for heavy-duty pickup trucks. Despite that apparent contradiction, the XE 20d could find some converts. Driving Notes The biggest clue to the engine's fuel source is the tachometer, which only counts to 6,000. But you wouldn't know from the fast throttle response or the way revs climb when you mash the accelerator. All 180 peak horsepower come at 4,000 rpm, and the 317 pound-feet of torque are available from 1750 to 2500 rpm. Really, this engine is smooth. Credit the low 15.1:1 compression ratio, which also helps make the engine's aluminum construction possible. The surge of power from the turbo builds steadily instead of kicking in all at once. Jaguar's engineers focused on friction reduction with a fanatical devotion, all in the name of efficiency. One key feature is the offset crankshaft. That is, the crankshaft is located to the side of the cylinder centerline. This reduces the side load forces during the firing cycle. In the manual transmission the gears are cupped to reduce mass. A pump sprays oil directly on the cogs, which cuts back on the total amount of fluid and cuts back on friction loss due to windage. No, the manual transmission isn't coming to the US. And yes, it's really good. Not just in the cliche journalist love for the diesel-manual combo, but objectively good. That smooth responsive nature of the engine is amplified when you get to choose your own gears. So we make due with the eight-speed automatic, the 8HP45 version of the ubiquious ZF box. The coolest trick here is a pendulum-style damper in the torque converter instead of a typical spring damper. When the torque converter is locked up this cuts down on torsional vibration between the engine and transmission. And that enables low-rpm cruising and higher mpg.