As supercharged grand tourers, not only are the Aston Martin DB7 and Jaguar XKR similar in concept but, due to their joint Ford parentage, they share much below the surface. The pair even arrived around the same time, too. We get an early example of each side-by-side to look at these similarities as well as their many differences.
The Pininfarina Azzurra Spider – née Fiat 124 Sport Spider – is a pretty car of timeless character; deserves decent and timeless drives. And 50 years of marriage warrants proper celebration so Australian couple Michael and Christa Wapler headed to Germany, picked up a low-mileage, very original 1985 Azzurra Spider, drove across the Alps and toured the Italian countryside. Under the Tuscan summer sun and more.
Wanting an E-type for sprints and hill climbs, Darren Tyre has transformed a lowmileage Series 2 fixedhead coupe into a fast, unique and well-developed racer
There was more than a little criticism from the press when in early 1982 Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) announced it was to enter the European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) with a Jaguar XJ-S. Big, heavy and very thirsty, it was – on paper at least – an unsuitable choice for this highly competitive series, just as the XJ12 Coupe had been five years earlier. Worse still, TWR’s effort had limited backing from the factory, only getting paid when the cars finished on the podium. With BMW dominating the series, doing so would be a tall order.
Jaguar never produced a MkVII drophead coupe but that hasn’t stopped enthusiast John Lucas from creating a model that could have easily have been penned by Lyons’ own hand.
Not only was this 1961 E-Type the first open-two-seater to feature factory seat belt mountings but it was later transformed into an evocation of the rare Lightweight model.
This DB2/4 features coachwork by the Italian coachbuilder, Vignale, and was built in 1954 for the king of Belgium. After becoming derelict, it has recently been restored by marque specialist, Aston Workshop.
Road Atlanta might be thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, but what happened at the American circuit four decades ago would have a direct impact on Jaguar’s future success at Le Mans. Ever since Bob Tullius’ Group 44 team had announced its IMSA GTP programme with the V12-engined XJR-5 in the early Eighties, there had been speculation that it would be a spring board for the British company to head back to the famed 24-hour race. Jaguar, though, initially played down its chances.
This 1954 Jaguar XK120 DHC 3.4 was originally owned by French singer Gilbert Bécaud. Repatriated back to the UK in the late Eighties, it’s since been restored twice.
In 2001, Jaguar’s Special Vehicle Operations revealed a pair of XKR 4.0 prototypes to show the potential future direction for the company and the car. With 400bhp, a manual gearbox and stiffened suspension, the XKR-R was a very different animal to the production model. Two decades later, we give one of these special cars a rare outing at Lincolnshire’s Blyton Park
