THEY don’t call it the Green Hell for nothing. The Nürburgring Nord-schleife is a mythical 20,8 km long ribbon of tar and concrete that twists, turns, rises and falls through more than 140 corners as it cuts across the beautiful countryside surrounding the German town of Nürburg. It is nirvana for petrolheads who flock here in their thousands every year to experience it for themselves, with their own cars. Sometimes, the adventure ends in ecstasy. Often, it ends in tears. YouTube is riddled with proof that the Green Hell doesn’t tolerate ham-fisted driving.
But stand next to the track and you won’t just see spiky-haired wannabes in their Golf GTIs getting it wrong. Dotted among the everyday cars are test mules, camouflaged with black tape and bin liners. Car companies have used the Nordschleife to fine-tune the drivetrains and dynamics of many performance cars since the ‘60s.
The Jaguar XKR-S spent 390 laps of sheer mechanical agony on this circuit during its development phase. Do the maths… that’s an impressive distance covered, never at anything less than 100 per cent pace. Now factor in the belief that the Nordschleife is a so-called 1:100 track. According to the car companies that use it, every 1 km of the Nordschleife equates to 100 km in the real world. Now do the maths again.
The result is a car that has lapped the Nordschleife in 8:03,00 during testing by Germany’s Sport Auto magazine. Jaguar claims a time of 7:51,00.If you know your Nürburgring lap times, 8:03,00 will hardly raise an eyebrow … not for the right reasons, anyway. For comparative purposes, let’s mention another car that spent much of its gestation on this circuit, the Nissan GT-R. Godzilla obliterates the track in 7:24,00. Game over? Does the XKR-S’s relatively poor Nordschleife lap time mean it is a failure? Did Jaguar’s development drivers spend thousands of hours pounding this circuit for nothing?
The answer to that question depends very much on what it is about performance-car ownership that gives you joy. If the knowledge that a certain car is fast around a racing circuit compared with its peers gives you pleasure, and you are a good enough driver to exploit said car’s abilities, then the Jaguar XKR-S is not for you, and you can turn to page 22 for the driving impression on the Pagani Huayra. If, however, you believe the measure of a performance car’s brilliance (or not) is how alive it makes the driver feel and how much fun it is to drive, then this Jaguar may be without equal.
But, there is a caveat, and it has much to do with the old saying, “You are never as alive as in the face of death.” Read the Jaguar press release on this car and the phrase driver-focused appears numerous times. The XKR-S spent so much time on the Nürburgring because Jaguar wanted to develop the most extreme, most thrilling version of the XK that it could. Consequently, the boundaries of the car’s now ageing under-pinnings have certainly been pushed. The result is a car that will always split opinion. In fact, the XKR-S’s relatively low test score is indicative of this – for a number of CAR’s testers, the XKR-S is simply too much – too noisy, too tacky, too loose; while, for the others, nothing else will quite do.
And so ends the long intro-duction, necessary because, in these techno-obsessed times, it is almost unbelievable that a car company could release a machine such as this, because it wanted it to be, exactly, like this – a full-on, hardcore, analogue driving experience. Think modern muscle car and you’re bang on the money.
Finished in French Racing Blue, the XKR-S’s assault on the senses is immediate and overwhelming. The colour also highlights a number of model-specific changes, most notably the twin-intake nacelles on the nose, and the front splitter, rear apron and spoiler finished in carbon-fibre. Sitting 10 mm closer to the asphalt compared with a standard XKR, the XKR-S looks menacing, muscular and large.
There’s no getting away from the fact that the XKR-S is not a compact two-seater supercar but a large, luxurious GT that has been subjected to a Frankenstein-like experiment. In fact, that’s not far from the truth. The XKR-S
is the result of a skunkworks project by a handful of Jaguar engineers. Only when the powers-that-be discovered how good it was did it get fast-tracked into a production reality.
These engineers made small but meaningful changes to what was already available to them. To up the power to 405 kW, they remapped the ECU of the trusty supercharged 5,0-litre V8 engine and fitted a performance active-exhaust system. The gains are very obvious when you look at the raw performance data. Our test car scorched to 100 km/h in 4,21 seconds (an improvement of 0,4 over the standard XKR) and clocked a one-kilometre sprint time of 21,74 seconds at a terminal speed of 254 km/h. Its top speed is limited to 300 km/h. Without the restrictor, it is said to be capable of 322 km/h.
Much of the time at the Nordschleife was spent trying to improve the sharpness and stability of the car. The XKR-S’s steering is 10 per cent quicker than a XKR’s and there are firmer springs, dampers (28 per cent stiffer) and anti-roll bars, too. Impressively, the bodykit does more than just make the car look angry – aerodynamic lift has been cut by 26 per cent. Tipping the scales at a hefty 1,8 tonnes, the XKR-S is no lightweight and, with all that firepower onboard, it needs proper brakes. Jaguar has fitted a high-performance braking system with 380 mm ventilated discs in front and 376 mm units at the rear. These performed brilliantly during our emergency brake-test routine, clocking an average stopping time of only 2,76 seconds.
Get into the XKR-S and you’ll notice a few changes. There are electrically adjustable sports seats, carbon-fibre-effect trim pieces, body-coloured stitching and a roof lined with black leather. Although these details are welcome, they fail to hide the fact that the XK’s basic facia design is now quite old. The infotainment screen, for example, still uses graphics from the pre-facelift XF. That said, it all works and driver comfort is superb. There are two token rear seats, of course, but in reality they provide nothing more than extra stash space.
Jab the pulsating starter button and the V8 erupts into life with a metallic edge to its bark. From outside, this car is always noisy.
Setting off on a first drive in an XKR-S doesn’t fail to highlight a few details. Firstly, for such a hardcore machine, the ride is surprisingly cosseting. The seats are comfy and the controls, particularly the steering, are light and precise.
Like all modern Jaguars, the XKR-S throttle mapping is a thing of beauty, being impressively linear and ultra responsive. The engineers also deserve applause for how they’ve managed to sync the car’s old-fashioned six-speed automatic transmission with the engine. There’s no double-clutch setup here and, for much of the time, you don’t miss such a system.
Tootling along at sane speeds, you may be left to wonder what all the fuss is about. The XKR-S could be a comfy daily runner, with good ride quality, easy clearance over speed humps, a luxurious interior and a good audio system. That would be the Dr Jekyll side of its character.
However, boot the throttle and all hell breaks loose as Mr Hyde arrives in a cloud of smoke and the sound of thunder. The massive 295/35-profile rear tyres struggle to put all that power on the road and the big rear-end squirms. Do this with just a little bit of angle on the steering wheel and you could have your XKR-S properly sideways before even leaving the car park.
Even in its normal setting, the XKR-S’s electronic nanny appears to have a hilarious non-committal approach to its duties, allowing large slip angles before stepping into action and calming things down. Switch to dynamic mode and the throttle response becomes even sharper and the exhaust louder, with lovely pops and crackles intermingled with the roar, just for fun. You can, of course, switch all the electronics off, too, but this is really only advisable for seriously capable drivers, as the car is then steered as much on the throttle as it is by the steering. Get it right and the XKR-S will leave you breathless with excitement. Get it wrong and you’d better have a large run-off area. If all of this makes the XKR-S sound dangerous, it would be unfair. If the driver behind the wheel sticks to their own limits, the XKR-S will behave. The problem is, the XKR-S’s brilliant soundtrack and responsiveness encourage misbehaving, and that’s where the danger lies.
Test Summary
While the XKR-S may come across as a one-dimensional beast intent on slaying you, that description is unfair. It simply possesses the ability to amplify the behaviour of the driver behind the wheel. Drive sanely and it’s comfortable, relaxing even. Drive like a hooligan, and it could rip the leash from your hands, turn round and take a huge bite out of your bottom. This duality in its character means that respect is a requirement.
In conclusion then, by most measurable qualities, the XKR-S seems to be a heavily compromised product. But, in terms of the immeasurable qualities of driver stimulation, interaction, feedback and for the sheer thrill of driving, it delivers a crushing performance. It’s not a car to buy because you think you will like it. If you’re sure, however, that the XKR-S’s particular method of delivering pure driving enjoyment is what you crave, there’s nothing quite like it, no matter what the lap times say.