Jaguar XKR-S 2011 Review - International

Jaguar XKR-S

Overview
>>Check out that pricetag
You have to wonder why Jaguar built the XKR-S. It's not that it's a pointless car, because any time HQ tells the dealers there's a new, more-expensive addition at the top of the range and that it's also the most powerful car the brand's ever built, there's going to be at least a ripple of excitement.

When you tell them that it's not just a flash-in-the-pan, but a fully fledged, permanent member of the model lineup, that ripple usually turns into a wave and lots of people start waving their hands around in excitement. Even if these things don't sell in numbers, they often help sell lesser models, so persuasive can be their halos.

And driving the XKR-S is pulling on a racesuit every time you sit in the thing, because it's just dripping with a latent aggression even the supercharged XKR can't comprehend.

No, it's just that, with the XKR's 13-15 per cent share not exactly providing the bulk of the sales of Jag's XK two-door coupe range around the world, you have to wonder where Jaguar thinks it's going to find the sliver within that sliver… Especially when the asking price for the XKR-S has stretched up to $340,000.

The engine is, internally at least, identical to the XKR's third-generation, 5.0-litre, supercharged V8, yet it has another 40hp to lift it to 405kW, another 55Nm of torque to go to 680Nm and it's faster -- everywhere.

And, Jaguar claims, it hits 300km/h and can run to 100km/h in 4.4 seconds -- which is 0.4 seconds faster than the XKR. Yet, you'll need to be desperate for that 0.4 seconds, because it will cost you $100,000.

Luckily, that's not all the XKR-S scores…

On the surface it's not that different to the XKR, yet it's $100,000 more money. Okay, there are revisions aplenty, but they're mostly refinements on a theme rather than wholesale changes.

Even with most of that $100K heading to the tax office via the LCT, that's still an enormous whack. And then Jaguar has “personalization” packages so you can add even more cost if the original gear isn't enough for you.

Here's the most painful part: in the United States, this same car sells for US$132,875. That's less than $126,000 in Australian money without Australian profit margins and Australian taxes… Who's explaining away the missing $214,000?

A lot of its trick interior bits aren't even unique, being optional on the rest of the XK and XKR range (including new sports seats that have an enormous array of adjustment). Fair enough, it does have a unique leather treatment covering the 16 (16!) different movements of the seat, so that's something. In an ironic twist, Jaguar has bought the leather for its roof lining from the Italian company, Poltrona Frau, which is majority owned by Ferrari boss, Luca di Montezemolo.

There's also a crackingly good seven-inch touchscreen for everything from the entertainment system to the satellite navigation (which can be tricked on strange Portugese backroads, but should be okay in countries that aren't bankrupt.

They've tweaked the electronics and the exhaust and the supercharger boost to lift the power to 405kW at 6000rpm. Torque has been lifted from 625 to 680Nm all the way from 2500-5500rpm. The V8 has variable valve timing, it's all aluminium and even got direct-fuel injection. It's becoming, in other words, a pretty serious engine.

It also emits like no other Jaguar, though its 292 grams of CO2/km is better than Maserati's MC Stradale manages. So is the 12.3L/100km combined economy figure.

Unfortunately, Jaguar mates this wicked mill to a tweaked version of its existing six-speed ZF automatic transmission. It seems not to have received the memo re: urgency. The box has been strengthened to cope with the torque, Jaguar insists, but it doesn't feel any quicker.

From here, the tweaks get really interesting. There's an active exhaust system that shortens the path for freer breathing when there's heavy lifting afoot and then there's the new differential. Still maintaining its rear-wheel drive status, the XKR-S is the first to receive Jaguar's in-house active diff. This ‘clever' unit constantly reassigns drive from one wheel to the other, depending on which one can punch forward hardest at the time. The way it does this is relatively conventional, with a multi-plate clutch snuggled up to the diff, but it works pretty well (and is on the XKR as well).

Then there's a set of adjustable dampers that measure the wheel position 500 times a second and adjust the damper stiffness to suit whatever it finds. They are the last of what Jaguar claims to be the three pillars of how it will move forward with its performance cars into the future (after the engine and diff) and operate in a similar way to Maserati's Skyhook active suspension system -- hough, again, Jaguar developed them in-house.

Away from the trickery, there's also good, old-fashioned mechanical changes, including a new steering knuckle, changes to the castor and camber, revised rear suspension geometry and rear spring rates that are a whopping 32 per cent stiffer than the ones in the XKR. The front springs are 28 per cent stiffer and work in concert with a 10mm drop in the overall ride height.

Design boss Ian Callum hasn't left his own bodywork alone, either, tweaking the nose with aggressive air vents in the bonnet and a deeper splitter and tweaking the rear with a very unJaguar-esque spoiler standing proud of the bootlid. It's all designed to provide a combination of unapologetic aggression and to reduce its lift by 26 per cent.

At least for your extra $100K you're not going to be confused with a more-humble XKR owner…

Headroom is excellent up front, though, and the basic packaging is identical to the outgoing XK range so it carries over all of its strengths and weaknesses.

It's not easy to climb into the rear seats and the electric motors don't adjust the front seats with enough haste to make getting in and out fast or elegant. And, where the front seats have 16 different methods of adjustment, the rear seats have, approximately, zero.

The boot is a surprisingly useful place, though, and so is the XKR-S's glovebox and centre console. The impression of space has been helped enormously by  carrying over the pop-up gearshift knob, which gets everything done beautifully and feels and looks fabulous.

Physics also works in the big cat's favour. The Jag's aluminium spaceframe means it weighs in at just 1671kg – about 200kg less than the MC Stradale – and it's stupendously strong in impacts.

The Turbo is also the default option, because in pure mechanical terms, nothing comes close and the only real reason for not buying one is that too many other people already have.

Not far away is the Audi R8 in its V8 guise. Easy to forget, because the R8 talk is all dominated by the 5.2-litre V10, but the 4.2-litre V8 is a lighter car, more economical and it's competitive with the naturally aspirated 911s.

BMW fans are caught in the gap between the end of the M6 and the introduction of the next version in about a year, while Benz buyers are left with an ageing SL63 AMG.

Also thereabouts is Maserati's emotion-dripping GranTurismo MC Stradale, with 110kg sliced from the GranTurismo's two-door bodyshell and another 10 horses stuffed under the nose. The difference for the Italian, though, is that where the Porsche has turbochargers feeding its flat six-cylinder engine and Jaguar has a supercharger nestled in the vee of its V8, Maserati has a naturally aspirated 4.7-litre V8.

On the flip side for the Italian, its engine is (front) mid-mounted, where the Jag is a true front-engined car and the Porsche, as ever, has its engine dangling out the back. Also in the Maserati's favour is that if you don't want a Porsche because you want more emotion from your supercoupe, nothing delivers more of it than the Maserati.

And somewhere between these two extremes is the XKR-S.

The impressions starts with the materials Jaguar has used inside the XKR-S (Maserati is also a Poltrona Frau client) and it stretches out to the way it sounds when you fire it up on its proximity key.

It's a deep, unapologetically gruff V8, not exactly silken but with a bit of a ripping crackle through it. Unlike the XKR, it's an engine note that instantly aggressive and smacking of trouble to come. It's not a car for the shy, especially in some of its more outlandish colours, and that's just backed up by the engine note.

There are so many adjustments in the seat that you actually spend a fair bit of time getting it just so… Then you start with the wheel… It's a thick-rimmed, leather wheel and it's reasonably comfortable, though its extremely thick spokes aren't as well thought through as they could be, forcing your hands higher and getting in the way during serious work.

But it takes only a few metres of rolling to figure out that the XKR-S is a fundamentally different machine to the XKR. It's so much stiffer that you could run over a coin and figure out what currency it was.

For all that, the ride comfort isn't as bad as it could have been, thanks to the active damping system, and it all feels like an XKR, but more taut and ready to riot.

The next thing you notice is that the pronounced whine from the supercharger has gone, replaced by the even more desirable addition of more exhaust noise.

The steering is sharper, too, and offers demonstrably more feedback (though that was never an XKR strong suit). It's a little darty when you cruise around, but that might have been the sub-par Portugese roads we used.

There is a range of suspension settings and the softest of them is, unusually, not too obviously soft. In fact, the only real issue with it is that it softens off the gearshift as well, so it's a bit slower to change up.

But the XKR-S brings it together best in Sport mode, with its sharper throttle, faster shifts, more accurate damper settings and a skid control setup that lets the car slide more before arresting any potential problems.

It hooks up beautifully on the road, belying the extra rear spring stiffness to deliver the power to the huge 20-inch rear tyres so well that it just drives out of corners brilliantly on its obese torque curve with that engine note bellowing off the scenery. Then, once you clear the middle revs, there's the extra fury of the power curve taking over and it revs with more freedom at the top of its lung capacity than the XKR.

The only issue is that the Sport setting gives you a bit of lateral head toss over bumps and the Auto mode doesn't deliver the shift speed.

The Jag's brakes, too, are superb on the road. They might be steel in a world where the best contenders use carbon-ceramics, but they're stupendously consistent and powerful out in the real world, with a stiff, hard pedal and instant reactions.

That changes on the track, though. The brakes that seemed unstoppable soon made the car the same way and the power-down out of corners dissipated in a way a 911 never seems to suffer from.

But that's on the track. That's on the wide-open spaces that aren't real. On the road, in the real world, the XKR-S is a terrific alternative to the Teutonic brilliance of the 911.

The only question is whether it's a big enough step up from the much, much cheaper XKR.

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