Jaguar · 1992–present

Jaguar XJ220

The Jaguar XJ220 is a two-seat supercar produced by British luxury car manufacturer Jaguar from 1992 until 1994, in collaboration with the specialist automotive and race engineering company Tom Walkinshaw Racing. The XJ220 (with catalytic converter removed) recorded a top speed of 217 mph (349 km/h) during testing by Jaguar at the Nardo test track in Italy. This made it the fastest production car from 1992 to 1993. According to Jaguar, an XJ220 prototype managed a Nürburgring lap time of 7:46.36 in 1991 which was faster than any production car lap time before it. The XJ220 was developed from a V12-engined 4-wheel drive concept car designed by an informal group of Jaguar employees working in their spare time. The group wished to create a modern version of the successful Jaguar 24 Hours of Le Mans racing cars of the 1950s and 1960s that could be entered into FIA Group B competitions. The XJ220 made use of engineering work undertaken for Jaguar's then current racing car family. The initial XJ220 concept car was unveiled to the public at the 1988 British International Motor Show, held in Birmingham, England. Its positive reception prompted Jaguar to put the car into production. Approximately 281 deposits of £50,000 each were taken and deliveries were planned for 1992. Engineering and emissions requirements resulted in significant changes to the specification of the XJ220, most notably the replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine by a turbocharged V6 engine. The changes to the specification and a collapse in the demand of high performance cars brought about by the early 1990s recession resulted in many buyers choosing not to exercise their purchase options. A total of just 275 cars were produced by the time production ended, each with a retail price of £470,000 in 1992, making it one of the most expensive cars at that time.

Text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Predecessor: Jaguar XJR-15 · Successor: Jaguar C-X75

All Jaguar XJ220 data: UK builds, safety, recalls, model years →

Conception

Racing team owner Tom Walkinshaw approached Jaguar executives and encouraged the company to enter the XJS into the 1981 European Touring Car Championship. The partnership succeeded in winning the competition in 1983. Jaguar had started to provide factory support to racing team Group 44 Racing, who were using the Jaguar-engined XJR-5 in the IMSA GT Championship, supplying V12 engines from 1983 onwards and supporting a Le Mans entry in 1984. Tom Walkinshaw and Jaguar agreed to enter the FIA Group C World Sportscar Championship and developed the XJR-6, which was powered by the same Jaguar V12 engine used by Group 44 Racing. The car was launched during the 1985 season. TWR took over the IMSA GT Championship operation in 1988 and one model – XJR-9 – was launched to compete in both series. The XJR-9, which retained the Jaguar V12 engine, went on to win the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Sportscar Championship in the same year. The poor fuel consumption of the Jaguar V12 combined with new rules restricting refueling during races, forced the replacement of the V12 engine in the successors to the XJR-9, the XJR-10 and XJR-11. The normally aspirated Austin Rover V64V engine, designed for the MG Metro 6R4 had recently been made redundant due to the Group B rally ban in 1987 and the design rights were for sale. The compact, lightweight and fuel efficient nature of the small-displacement, turbocharged engine was investigated by TWR. They considered it an ideal basis for a new engine to power the XJR-10 and purchased the design rights from Austin Rover Group. Jaguar and their Director of Engineering, Jim Randle, felt these racing cars were too far removed from the product available to the general public, especially with the rule changes that mandated the replacement of the Jaguar

Concept car

The FIA Group B regulations steered the concept towards a mid-engine, all-wheel-drive layout, with a Jaguar V12 engine as the power source. The concept car was designed and built at very little cost to Jaguar, as Randle called in favours from component suppliers and engineering companies he and Jaguar had worked with in the past. In return he offered public recognition for their assistance and dangled the possibility of future contracts from Jaguar. The name XJ220 was chosen as a continuation of the naming of the XK120, which referred to the top speed of the model in miles per hour. The concept car had a targeted top speed of 220 mph (350 km/h) so the name became XJ220. The XK120, like the XJ220, was an aluminium-bodied sports car and when launched was the fastest production car in the world. Engine and transmission. Jaguar's engine designer Walter Hassan had previously developed a 48-valve variant of their V12 engine specifically for motorsport use. It featured a double overhead camshaft layout with four valves per cylinder, compared with the single overhead camshaft and two valves per cylinder of the production engine, which was used in the XJ and XJS models at the time. TWR had manufactured a number of these racing V12 engines during the 1980s and they had been raced competitively, with a 7-litre version of this engine featuring in the Le Mans-winning XJR-9. Five of these engines still existed, all of which were fitted with dry sump lubrication. One of five of these engines was chosen and considered to be especially useful as the dry sump would lower the vehicle's centre of gravity. The displacement of the V12 was set at 6.2 litres (6,222 cc) for the XJ220. The engine fitted to the XJ220 concept had titanium connecting rods. Jaguar had little experience with four-whe

Production version

Jaguar were unable to develop the XJ220 in-house as the available engineering resources were committed to working on the XJ and XJS models. Jaguar and TWR had an existing joint venture, JaguarSport Ltd. formed in 1987 to produce racing cars. Jaguar's board made the decision that subject to contractual agreement, TWR and JaguarSport would be responsible for the XJ220. JaguarSport formed a new company, Project XJ220 Ltd., specifically to develop and build the XJ220. The team that would determine the necessary engineering work and assess the car's financial viability was put in place during mid-1989, working from the TWR workshops. Mike Moreton headed the team, joining TWR to run the XJ220 project. Moreton came from Ford Motorsport where he led the team responsible for the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth, and was a project manager for the Ford RS200 Group B rally car program. Richard Owen was appointed chief designer and the remainder of the team was made up of Jaguar and TWR staff, including Pete Dodd, the only member of the group of twelve responsible for the XJ220 concept. The exterior and interior designers who had worked on the XJ220 prototype, Keith Helfet and Nick Hull, rejoined the project when it became clear that more design work would be needed. Development. The development team looked at the two principal competitors, the Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 959. These were powered by compact, lightweight engines; both the Ferrari and the Porsche used forced induction to obtain high power outputs from small-displacement engines. Ferrari used a 2.9-litre (180 cu in) twin-turbocharged V8 engine that was rated at 352 kW; 471 hp (478 PS) whilst Porsche used a 2.9-litre (180 cu in) twin-turbocharged flat-six engine rated at 331 kW; 444 hp (450 PS), resulting in cars that were si

Guinness World Record

Jaguar had performed high speed testing of the pre-production XJ220 with chassis number 004 at the Firestone proving ground in Fort Stockton, Texas in 1991 and recorded a maximum speed of 212.3 mph (341.7 km/h), which was faster than any production car at the time. According to Car magazine, Jaguar hoped to attain 220 mph (354 km/h) with the XJ220, mainly for promotional reasons. The decision was made to undertake further high speed testing in June 1992 at the Nardò Ring in Italy, with one journalist from Road & Track and one from the Car magazine together with a photographer and a BBC cameraman recording for BBC Top Gear as independent witnesses. None of the independent witnesses understood how Jaguar's testing equipment worked. The pre-production XJ220 with chassis number 009 would be driven by Martin Brundle, who had won the 1990 24 Hours of Le Mans driving the XJR-12. The initial high speed runs, with the car configured in standard trim (catalytic converters connected, lower rev-limit of 7,400 rpm) achieved a maximum recorded speed of 212.3 mph (341.7 km/h), the same speed as previously reached at Fort Stockton during testing. Brundle reported that the car was hitting the rev limiter during the run. The rev limiter was increased to 7,900 rpm and the catalytic converters were removed in favour of installing straight-through exhaust pipes for a second series of runs, and it was this attempt which resulted in the maximum recorded speed of 217.1 mph (349.4 km/h). It was estimated that the removal of the catalytic converters, which were not mandated in Europe at the time, increased the power output by around 51 PS (38 kW; 50 hp). Guinness Book of World Records recorded the 217.1 mph run as the official fastest speed ever attained by a standard production car, this figure

Reception and sales

Press coverage of the XJ220 concept in 1988 was overwhelmingly positive and contributed to the decision in 1989 to put the XJ220 into limited production. The production version of the car was first shown to the public in October 1991, at the Tokyo Motor Show. The first car was launched for press review in Autumn 1991. Autocar's Andrew Frankel was the first journalist to road-test the car and reported: "Savage acceleration really is a given here. What's really incredible about the XJ220 is its ability to provide such performance in a way that never, ever intimidates." He was particularly impressed with the throttle response, the driver's ability to control the performance of the car very precisely, and the way in which the engine delivers its power progressively rather than in one short burst. Performance Car reviewer John Barker was also impressed with the performance as well as the ride and stability of the car, writing "The V6 has a rumbly, loping note which, in league with a remarkably supple ride, belies the speed we are travelling at. I glance to the speedo and have trouble believing that it is indicating 170 mph." Barker was also impressed with the engineering, saying "this car is catalysed, fully homologated and has passed the same tests that a Volvo needs before going on sale", going on to discuss how the vehicle looked at home on the racetrack thanks to the design. Autocar's verdict was "Right now, the XJ220 gives us a standard by which all other fast cars can be compared. For the few who will actually own and, hopefully, use their XJ220s, the fact that they are in command of the most accomplished supercar ever made should suffice." Ergonomics and ride were also praised by Gavin Green in Car August 1992: "you sit straight ahead, pedals and four-spoked Nardi whe

Racing

A racing version was introduced at the 1993 Autosport International motor show; given the model name XJ220-C, it was built to compete in FISA GT racing. The XJ220-C driven by Win Percy won its first race, a round of the BRDC National Sports GT Challenge at Silverstone. Three works XJ220-Cs were entered in the 1993 24 Hours of Le Mans race, in the newly created Grand Touring Class. John Nielsen, David Brabham and David Coulthard won the GT class, beating Porsche by two laps; the other two cars retired, both through engine failure. However, the class win was revoked when the Jaguar XJ220-C was controversially disqualified for failing to run with catalytic converters. The Jaguars had passed scrutiny and completed the first day of qualifying when senior steward Alain Bertaut complained that Jaguar were not running catalytic converters. The cars had been entered under the IMSA GT category and Bertaut claimed that they needed to run with catalysts. The cars ran in the race under appeal. International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) officials wrote to the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) (English: Automobile Club of the West), organisers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, confirming that the XJ220-Cs entered had complied with IMSA rules. Jaguar won their appeal (supported by the FIA) but were nevertheless disqualified, as the ACO confirmed that the appeal had not been lodged in time. Four cars were entered in the GT1 class for the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, two by PC Automotive Jaguar and two by Chamberlain Engineering, though the latter did not run their cars. Neither team had Jaguar or TWR backing; both of PC Automotive's cars were outpaced by the new McLaren F1 GTR. Richard Piper, Tiff Needell and James Weaver were holding fourth position until an engine failure during the night, e

Sections adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); text is shortened. Read the full article for the complete history and citations.

Specifications

name: Jaguar XJ220
Manufacturer: JaguarSport, (Jaguar/TWR joint venture)
Production: 1992–1994, 282 produced
Assembly: United Kingdom: Bloxham, Oxfordshire
Predecessor: Jaguar XJR-15
Successor: Jaguar C-X75 (spiritual)
Class: Sports car (S)
Body style: 2-door coupé
Layout: Rear mid-engine, all-wheel-drive (concept), Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive (production version)
Engine: 6222 cc Jaguar V12 (concept), 3498 cc twin-turbocharged Jaguar JRV-6 V6 (production version)
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Wheelbase: 2640 mm
Length: 4930 mm
Width: 2009 mm (excluding wing mirrors)
Height: 1150 mm
Kerb weight: 1470 kg
Designer: Keith Helfet under Jim Randle
sp: uk
Top speed: 343 km/h

Specification summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Measured facts from Wikidata (CC0). Check the linked sources for citations.

More photos

Sources

Wikidata — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q521044CC0 1.0 · retrieved 2026-10-01
Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_XJ220CC BY-SA 4.0 · Text © Wikipedia contributors; revision 1367594559 · retrieved 2026-10-01
Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JagXJ220.JPGPublic domain · Photo: Jagvar at English Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-10-01
Car Model Index — https://models.autoculturesociety.com/Compiled record. Sources that do not permit reuse are not copied; this index is credited instead.