The Concept
In the early days of the company, certain Jaguar employees had created an informal group they called "The Saturday Club" (so-named because they would meet after-hours and on weekends to work on unofficial pet-projects). In the 1980s, Jaguar's chief-engineer Jim Randle , as part of that group, began work on what he saw as competition for cars like the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959. He envisioned what was essentially an updated XJR13 - a lightweight two-seater with a powerful V12 engine mounted behind the driver. Randle expanded on the idea by settling on all-wheel drive for increased traction and better handling and an integral safety-cage so the car could be safely raced at extremely high speeds. From the outset, the intention was to create a 200+ MPH vehicle.
The Show Car
Jaguar executives who saw the concept were sufficiently impressed to formally commit company resources to producing a car for the 1988 British Motor Show. Tom Walkinshaw Racing was tapped to produce a 6.2 liter version of Jaguar's legendary V12 engine with four valves per cylinder, quad camshafts and a target output of 500bhp. The all-wheel drive system was produced by FF Developments who had experience with such systems going back to the 1960s and the Jensen FF (or "Fergusen Formula") model.
The styling of the car was done by Keith Helfet and included scissor-style doors similar to those in use by Lamborghini in several of their cars.
The name XJ220 was assigned as a reference to the targetted top-speed of 220mph.
The prototype car was significantly heavier (1560kg - 3440lbs) than other Jaguar racers like the XJR9 . But as it was intended to be, first and foremost, a roadcar, it would be more appropriate to compare it with something like the XJS; in spite of being 30 inches longer and 10 inches wider and even with the added weight of the all-wheel drive system, the XJ220 was 170kg lighter than the XJS.
The car was officially announced in 1989 with a price of £361,000 and prospective buyers were expected to put up a deposit of £50,000 to be put on the waiting list for delivery. Because Jaguar promised to limit initial production to 220 units and that total production would not exceed 350, many of those who put deposits on the cars were speculators who intended to sell the car at an immediate profit.
To put that price in perspective for Americans, the exchange-rate at the end of 1989 was approximately $1.61 = £1.00. That was a price of roughly $580,000. Adjusted for inflation, that would be the equivalent of roughly $880,000 in 2004 US Dollars.
The Production Car
The production version of the car was first shown to the public in October of 1991 after undergoing significant changes. The most obvious of which was a completely different drivetrain and the elimination of the scissor doors.
The 6.2 liter V12 had been judged too difficult to get past increasingly strict emission regulations and there were also reportedly some design issues as well given the size of the power plant. It was replaced with a Tom Walkinshaw-developed 3.5 liter V6 which was fitted with twin-turbochargers. Not only the first V6 in Jaguar's history but the first one to use forced induction. In spite of the smaller displacement and half the number of cylinders, the engine produced more power than the V12 had but many people judged the exhaust note to be harsh and the lag from the turbos to be an annoyance.
Also missing from the production version of the car was the Ferguson Formula all-wheel drive, the V6 version of the car drove the rear wheels only through a conventional transaxle.
The car entered production in 1992 but many of the initial customers were dissatisfied not only with the modifications to the original specification but the significant increase in delivery price from the original £361,000 to £403,000 (equivalent to more than $980,000 in 2004 US dollars).
Further complicating the issue was Tom Walkinshaw's offer of the faster, more expensive and more exclusive XJR-15 which was based on the Le Mans champion XJR-9.
Some customers reportedly either sued Jaguar or threatened to sue—in any case, Jaguar gave the customers the option to buy themselves out of the delivery contract.
In spite of the drama surrounding its creation, the car remains a very rare and sought-after collectable supercar.
