BETTER PARTSClassic car auction: Jaguar XJ220
Birmingham / Gaydon ( UK ), November 10, 2014
You are looking for a good used car or the perfect, dark green Christmas? Then you should travel on November 15, 2014. " Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show " in Birmingham. There auctioned " Silverstone Auctions " with a Jaguar XJ220 an exhibit of the history of the automobile, in which the entire genesis as well as the explicit vehicle history are very particular.
The Jaguar XJ220 is created
The story of Big Cat begins like a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm and matured small batch as Stammtisch idea: It was once the former Jaguar chief engineer Jim Randle, who spent a Christmas holiday in the 1980s in order to make drawings of a new Jaguar Super athletes. He dreamed of a V12 engine, including four-wheel drive, packed in a flat, streamlined two-seater body. With colleagues he then sat down in the "Saturday Club " together ( here, Jaguar staff met on weekends to discuss unofficial private projects with one another ) to mature the idea further.
The concept is presented
Even the official site Jaguars showed immediately interested in the Stammtisch project. On the Birmingham Motor Show 1988, the first concept of the XJ220 was introduced. Randles dreams had come true: The British presented a four-wheel drive super sports car, powered by a 6.2-liter V12 with 537 hp. Although only 350 vehicles were planned, was the original price of about 700,000 euros and Jaguar demanded a deposit of 75,000 euros, went within a very short time over 1,500 orders.
The cutbacks are made
On the way to small series production, however, you put the red pencil on: The V12 flew out and was replaced by a twin-turbo V6 with 3.5 liters and 549 hp. The all-wheel drive disappeared and the twin-turbo power flowed henceforth only to the rear wheels. In addition, the chassis has been shortened considerably. The resulting performance figures are still impressive 3.7 seconds to 100 km / h and 343 km / h top speed, although no bad fundamentals, but the XJ200 was not the promised 1988 vehicle. So jumped from many customers and 350 planned copies only 275 vehicles were converted.
owner history
The Sultan of Brunei was one of the remaining buyers who could not be deterred and slammed despite the massive changes to the starting vehicle. In 1992 he won both Elton John as one of the first to be dark green and handmade copy with the chassis number 220,693th In September 2002, the said car went back to the UK in the hands of a champagne merchant. At this time, the super sports car had only 1,412 miles on the odometer. The changed hands one more time and the speedometer shows today, after three owners and nearly 24 years of life of the car, only 5562 miles on.
the auction
Now to change the owner of the particular XJ220 a third time. The expected bids for this are, according to the auction house from 300,000 to 330,000 euros. A bargain compared to the then estimated new price. But the best thing about the car is not only the good price, the complete Maintenance Care, Royal previous owner and the exclusivity of a small series, no, the XJ200 has even TÜV to mid-August 2015 and the tax has been paid also to February 2015. A perfect Used up, but you should not pay as close attention to the consumption values you. 1992 an average of 18.3 liters of premium gasoline was quoted ex works. (ml)