It is considered the super sports car of the nineties. At least as far as it concerns the design, it will that too. As a prototype, it still has the phenomenal twelve-cylinder, which can be admired through the flat rear window. Therefore even the optimistic indication of speed, which is traditionally indicated as type designation in miles per hour at Jaguar.

It is the time of the Lamborghini Diablo, which it resembles somewhat. But the Porsche 959 rather less, but it is indeed supposed to come with 350 cars on the market, slightly more than planed from that. However, the Diablo does not surpasses in the top speed, but by far in the production figures.

But on the whole the XJ 220 cannot be considered as a success for Jaguar, although it is really beautiful. The project gets a little into a predicament after the takeover by Ford 1989. There one insists on cheaper production costs, what the car costs six cylinder, about 200 kg kerb weight and 25 centimeters in length.

Nonetheless, it attracted a lot of attention on the streets of the 90s. Also, it has remained in the aluminum body and the new Turbo engine has even slightly more performance than its predecessor. Nevertheless, the affection of the customers cooled considerably who had paid a deposit on the prototype. After all them had been promised next to the twelve-cylinder a spectacular door concept too.

The target sales figure is still achieved, even when the test reports knew to tell little flattering. There were criticised motor noise, driveability in the city, gear shifting and noise as well as difficult-to-use steering and clutch. Also an ABS and brakes adjusted to the enormous speed are sorely missed.

What remains is a spectacular looking super sports car, often with low mileage and certainly much cheaper to purchase than a Porsche 959. 08/14