PH liveblog: flat out with Jag
Dan takes a back seat for the final instalment from Germany
Sport Pack is something you can add to any XJ and gets you lightly tweaked aero and a few other bits and bobs. And on the Supercharged one you can go further with the Speed pack which, thanks to the greater stability (according to Jag), the regular 155mph limiter is raised to 174mph, or 280km/h. And we're off to try and hit that on the autobahn! Rude not to. Thence to the Nurburgring to prove it can also do corners and stuff too.
I'll be updating this blog as I go so keep checking by.
Dan
So, on our way home now after a night combining old-school Nurburgring - steak on a stone at the Pistenklause - and the new school in the form of the Lindner hotel at the NuroDisney complex up the road.
Frank's limo awaits its first customers...
That Granada Scorpio-esque profile is still a little shocking I admit but the inside of an XJ is a very nice place to be and bursting with character. Not a bad place to crack on with the morning routine of checking emails and planning the day's content!
Probably more suited than the 'taxi' our man Frank Klaas was proudly showing off yesterday, this an old XJ Supersport press car converted into a kind of Nurburgring limo complete with a full roll cage and four harnessed up race seats. And sick bags in the door pockets. I didn't get a go in the end but Frank has promised us some access to it in the future and is full of crazy plans. He's certainly a character, the 'closing ceremony' of our day on track yesterday being a thanks from them for not crashing any of the cars followed by Queen's We Are The Champions blasting over the speakers and slighty stunned expressions from everyone else. And over dinner he apparently proved an uncommon ability to simulate the engine note of rally-spec Audi Quattro, complete with pops and bangs on the over-run. Like I say, a character!
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The fast hands have had their first outing! Not that they helped me any but a little bit of backstage manoeuvring contrived a group and instructor willing to press on a little more and we've had some fun, the fruits of which you'll seeing in video form in due course.
I lucked out and got into an XKR-S coupe while Dale luxed out in an XJ, the longer wheelbase and generally softer nature apparently not dimming his ability to go sideways in big clouds of tyre smoke. Unseemly behaviour in such a grand car but, hell, lots of fun.
What a car that XKR-S is too. The beauty of the Jaguar way of doing things is that these masses of clever gadgets in the chassis like the adaptive dampers and clever diffs only serve to compliment you as a driver rather than dictate the experience. It's the polar opposite of, say, Audi and a refreshingly smart application of tech rather than slavish worship thereof. The car is there to make the driver feel good, not like some redundant organism there to be controlled and patronised.
I'm nowhere near as confident as Dale round here but after a lap in Trac DSC I felt comfortable enough to switch it all off and indulge in some wee skids of my own, something I've never dared do round here before, especially in such a powerful, aggressively set up car. That you can nail the throttle in a 550hp rear-drive car and, even as a ham-fisted idiot like me, feel confident enough to hold a tentative little slide is massively rewarding and the Jag would have been an interesting addition to Chris's monster track coupes vid the other night. OK, it's no GT3 RS 4.0 but I reckon it'd be an interesting comparison with the C63 Black. Jag's trick is taking the raw ingredients - the hardware in the form of off-the-shelf gearboxes and steering gear from the likes of ZF - and then optimising them. The gearbox is a perfect example - it responds like a dual-clutch and shifts instantaneously from the paddles when you want it to but can do the properly wafty auto thing too. Brilliant car - hungry for more now!
So, time to go out on the Nordschleife and break in those virginal fast hands! But first a briefing from Frank Klaas and his team of racing drivers with the aid of a video lap of the 'ring and some slightly cringeworthy back and forth between Frank and his boys. And then the video, filmed "with a journalist from the UK in the car with me" says Frank. And hang on, who's that? Yes, it's our very own Riggers!
Riggers gatecrashes the briefing
Anyway, briefing over and it's finally off to the track and the nature of the set-up - ducks and drakes behind an instructor in groups of wildly mixed ability - meant three fairly pedestrian laps in which I got to appreciate more of the XF's wafting abilities than I did this morning on the autobahn! So the fast hands remain untainted and never ventured out of the cupholder in which I'd placed them at the start.
Dale did get a ticking off for livening things up with some skidding though. Naughty boy.
Third time lucky for the fast hands? Could be! After missing the boat for the EasterMonday sprint at Goodwood and being rained off from the second opportunity for a debut by the torrential rain on Sunday could it be that my poncey Alpinestars gloves finally get their first outing? It's looking hopeful!
Not that I need them of course. Not for this. But, well, I've got them now and I may as well.
I'm a total hypocrite here of course, being naturally inclined to sniggering at all the gear no idea types who swagger around at trackdays with such attire. And then at the aforementioned Goodwood day I found myself walking into a pub, race suit tied around my waist and all integrity was destroyed in a second.
There's no coming back from a humiliation like that. So I may as well embrace it. While wearing my fast hands, obviously.
(Dale has brought his too, it should be noted. His have been around a bit and are, er, dirtier than mine. He says.)
Well, I did it! Or near enough, as you'll see from the photo with the speedo a whisker under the 280km/h limit. Honour satisfied, Speed Pack lives up to its name and the XJ has demonstrated it can do the fast lane ego demolition job on any unwitting local. Rule Britannia and all that!
The editor in essential ego massage photo op
Incredible too that it's still legal. Still boggles the mind that something that would result in a jail sentence back home is totally legit here. And I fear it may have ruined any future drives in the UK in an XJ, knowing how easily it can do this.
XJ Ultimate at the 'ring test centre
And now we're here at the 'ring to see if it can do corners too. I'm sure it can. And comms chief Frank Klaas is gearing up for another appearance on PH! Seriously, I thought I was a teeny bit obsessive about this place but Frank's in another league! And every time I see him he lights up with pride about his starring role on PH in the XFR. He's even cooked something up especially for us too. More on this shortly...
There can a sombre side to our obsession with speed of course. And here in a little lay-by on the arrow-straight A5 autobahn south of Frankfurt airport is a small memorial to a man who sacrificed his life to it – Auto Union’s Bernd Rosemeyer.
Rosemeyer memorial is sobering
Riggers was going to seek this little shrine out when he was here the other week but I gave him slightly erroneous directions. Well, I didn’t, I just missed out one small detail. The lay-by IS on the western side of the autobahn but the one important detail I’d missed was that, of course, over here in Germany that’s the southbound carriageway, not the northbound. Oops. Riggers realised my mistake after pacing about the northbound lay-by but, strangely, didn’t fancy trying to leg it over eight lanes of (very) fast-moving traffic and requiring the building of a second memorial.
Carraciola's streamliner Merc
No wonder the Nazis used it as a place to demonstrate the might of the technology developed by Auto Union and Mercedes under their sponsorship, this description of the fateful record attempts carrying some vivid quotes attributed to Rosemeyer (“…at about 240 mph the joints in the concrete road surface are felt like blows, setting up a corresponding resonance through the car … when you go under a bridge, for a split second the engine noise completely disappears and then returns like a thunderclap when you are through.”) and Caracciola ("The road seemed like a narrow white band, the bridges like tiny black holes ahead. It was a matter of threading the car through them...").
Rosemeyer and his Auto Union
Whisked straight off the plane and into some VIP area and here are our Jags, ready to roll. In red, white and blue. Nice touch and just the thing for rubbing the fact we’re not encumbered by 155mph limiters like the rest of the locals in their noses!
Time to go!
This is not, I should point out, the view from a maxed out Jaguar XJ Supersport Speed pack. Rather a slightly - only slightly - more sedately driven Vauxhall Vectra en route to Heathrow for my 7am to Frankfurt.
Once there we'll drive to the 'ring via, hopefully, some limit-free autobahn (more on this from our Riggers in due course) where I'll follow in the tyre tracks of my esteemed predecessor Chris R, who already enjoyed the XJ around the Nordschleife, and also Riggers who was introduced to the track by Nurburgringobsessed Jaguar comms man Frank Klaas in an XFR. Once there I'll also be meeting Ringside Seat man Dale Lomas and his new mate Phil Talboys, Jaguar's 'ring test centre manager and man with the keys to a shed full of supercharged Jags. So we'll be nice to Phil! The fleet does include an XKR-S apparently, leading Stuart yesterday to question my need to go on the trip at all. "What, Germany's the one country you haven't driven that car in yet?" he asked in a meeting. "Or was it just that you haven't had a go in a red one?" Um, now you come to mention it...
Ah well, I'm here at Heathrow now. And if I don't get to max the XJ out on the autobahn hopefully there'll be a chance at the 'ring. One way or another I'll see 174mph before the day is through, dammit!
Time to swot up on Jags and autobahn speed records on the flight over though. I've got a plan...
Failing that im sure the ring will offer up an opportunity. Just because the road is in a different country doesn't mean it is much different to driving anywhere else i'm sure all the controls all work in the same way. I'm pretty sure the Jag will get there fairly quickly too which means 174mph or very close shouldn't be too difficult.
Good luck in your quest which people might want to consider is LEGAL before shouting idiot, he also added that if not on the Autobahn then it would be at the ring which shows he has considered it may be busy.................
Driving at 174mph is never going to be "safe" but this is Pistonheads, the road is unrestricted and failing that he is going to take it on a race track. Aside from a runway, etc where else would be "safer" or legal?
Pussies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zu5_chlAkU&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa5ivpJwmIQ
Believe me, if there is any danger/ risk he won't attempt a flat out run.....but of course, he'd like to if he can.
You're a f
king idiot.How about engage brain first before posting and refrain from calling someone a f***ing idiot for no reason eh?
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