High-horsepower Jags for Goodwood

The UK’s unofficial motor show and official horsepower highlight, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, is on in all its upper crust glory this weekend (July 12-14), and British brands are scrambling with those damn foreign types for top billing.

Jaguar has thrown its bowler hat into the ring with the “debut” of three new R series performance vehicles, plus the first appearance of what is described as “an exciting new design study based on the Jaguar F-TYPE”.

Two of the R series vehicles are the production versions of the XJR performance limo and uprated R-S edition of Jaguar’s mainstream XF sedan. Both are powered by supercharged V8s, the XFR-S’s rated at 405kW and 680Nm. Jaguar intends the cars to take on the likes of Benz’s top-notch AMG models as well as BMW’s M cars and Audi’s RS variants.

The final R is a quasi GT3 racing version of the XKR sports 2+2. Similarly powered to the XFR-S, the XKR-S GT is described as “the most track-focused road-going Jaguar ever produced”.

British cycling great and six-times Olympic gold medal winner Sir Chris Hoy will drive the XKR-S GT on the Goodwood hill-climb run, sharing the duties with Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi.

Perhaps of most interest to many, however, will be the as yet unseen F-TYPE concept. So far little has leaked on the design study but we’re tipping Jaguar has suffered hyperbole overload and the car will in fact be a near-production ready example of the F-TYPE coupe.

The company has at least confirmed it is a living breathing variant: Jaguar Land Rover’s famed test driver and Chief Engineer Vehicle Integrity, Mike Cross, will drive the special F-TYPE up the Goodwood hill.

Look out for our full Goodwood preview later this week...

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