Wednesday 4th September 2024

Juan Manuel Fangio II's Jaguar XJR-15 for sale

Buy a one-of-16 XJR-15 race car, get a 600-mile XJR-S thrown in for free!

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Life must get pretty boring as a retired Formula 1 driver. Well, aside from finding new ways to spend your sponsorship money, the endless invites to glamorous galas and being pestered for autographs ad infinitum. Some get their competitive fix with occasional outings in the World Endurance Championship, others by following the F1 circus as a TV pundit (or both in Jenson Button’s case). But these are some of the most competitive people on the planet; they’d gnaw your arm off for a chance to race in front of a packed Grand Prix crowd again, surely?

Well, it used to be a thing. Kind of. Back in 1979, BMW launched a one-make series that’d serve as a warm-up act for that season’s Formula 1 championship. The grid consisted entirely of M1 Procars (how good must that have sounded?) driven by racing legends such as Niki Lauda and Mario Andretti, and even drivers competing in the Grand Prix. The series was dropped in 1981, but Jaguar revived the format for 1991 in spectacular style by pitting racing greats against each other in 16 identical XJR-15s, one of which is up for sale here on PH. 

The idea for the JaguarSport Intercontinental Challenge, quite possibly the greatest single-make series ever conceived, was as a high-profile advertisement for TWR and Jaguar's radical new supercar. Arriving at the tail end of 1990, the XJR-15 was essentially a road-going version of the Le Mans-winning XJR-9, with swoopy styling designed by Peter Stevens and a 6.0-litre naturally aspirated V12 churning out 450hp. Doesn’t sound like much these days, but a kerb weight of just 1,050kg and a chassis crammed full of motorsport hardware made the XJR-15 a right handful to drive. There’s barely any footage of the series online, but the clips that exist show 16 of the world’s top drivers squirrelling their way through the streets of Monaco to the sound of Murray Walker’s commentary.

Little did TWR and Jaguar know that the series would be desperately needed to drum up interest. While the XJR-15 was highly advanced, being the first production car built entirely of carbon fibre and kevlar composites, customers weren’t all that keen on driving a road-going Le Mans car. The £500,000 price tag, which barely gets you a Vauxhall Corsa in 2024, didn’t help either, especially as the world had just entered a recession that’d go on to hurt sales of the McLaren F1 and Jaguar XJ220, too. In all, TWR went on to build 27 road-going examples of the XJR-15, with 16 earmarked for the one-make series. 

This is one of the racers, still wearing its Intercontinental Challenge livery and original scrutinising stickers. You may have noticed the name above the driver, too. Driven by Juan Manuel Fangio II, nephew and namesake of the five-time F1 world champion, chassis 48 competed in all three rounds of the series, with Fangio taking home a win and a fourth-place finish at Silverstone and Monaco respectively. John Watson would take over Fangio’s spot for the final round at Spa, though didn’t make the chequered flag after colliding with Tiff Needell’s car.

Afterwards, the car was bought by former Samsung chief Lee Kun-hee and remained in his possession until 2020, when it was sold to a collector based in the UK. It was then restored by Riedling & Mouser, before being reunited with John Watson for the 2021 Goodwood Member’s Meeting. Three years later, it needs a new home, and the seller will even throw in a 600-mile XJR-S to sweeten the deal. Obviously, you’ll need to cough up for the XJR-15, which likely has a seven-figure sum hiding behind its POA - but how often do you get the chance to own a Fangio-driven race winner? 

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See the original advert here

[Orchardab]

Yes please.
Euro lottery car for me!

[Brent Hoffmeister]

1050kg

[MCBrowncoat]

Aren't these supposed to be terrible?

"Pretty, but ste"

[ducnick]

These were very much of their time. It’s a Le Mans spec road car with practically zero aerodynamic downforce. To be driven fast by anyone other than proper group C drivers, used to this type of car would be very dangerous. Nowadays we expect much more grip.

[Simoninspalding]

You could at least spell Juan Manuel Fangio's name correctly in the title.

[patmahe]

Race provenance doesn't come much higher than raced by Fangio so if that's what you're after this is one of few options unless you can afford his actual F1 cars if any are for sale.

[WPA]

patmahe said:

Race provenance doesn't come much higher than raced by Fangio so if that's what you're after this is one of few options unless you can afford his actual F1 cars if any are for sale.

Apart from the fact it was his nephew.

[Skeptisk]

ducnick said:

These were very much of their time. It’s a Le Mans spec road car with practically zero aerodynamic downforce. To be driven fast by anyone other than proper group C drivers, used to this type of car would be very dangerous. Nowadays we expect much more grip.

I recall watching a video with Clarkson, who almost managed to crash one whilst driving in a straight line on a runway. Having said that, the new owner probably won't drive it so not a real problem.

[MCBrowncoat]

Skeptisk said:

ducnick said:

These were very much of their time. It’s a Le Mans spec road car with practically zero aerodynamic downforce. To be driven fast by anyone other than proper group C drivers, used to this type of car would be very dangerous. Nowadays we expect much more grip.

I recall watching a video with Clarkson, who almost managed to crash one whilst driving in a straight line on a runway. Having said that, the new owner probably won't drive it so not a real problem.

He memorably wrote in the Magazine that if you farted the back end would step out.

[Turbobanana]

Skeptisk said:

I recall watching a video with Clarkson, who almost managed to crash one whilst driving in a straight line on a runway.

Which goes to prove that he has no real talent as a driver.

Beautiful cars when seen in the flesh. I've bought my Euromillions ticket

[smilo996]

seems to typify the rare car collector, sorry, investment market. Something were thousands of hours were used to design and construct the car, wasted on fools.

[BigChiefmuffinAgain]

A cynical opportunist car back in the day which rightly was a sales flop on account that it was almost impossible to drive on the road. Quickly superseded by the XJ220 which itself was no great success. No idea why anyone would want this car...

[Gary C]

Turbobanana said:

Skeptisk said:

I recall watching a video with Clarkson, who almost managed to crash one whilst driving in a straight line on a runway.

Which goes to prove that he has no real talent as a driver.

Beautiful cars when seen in the flesh. I've bought my Euromillions ticket

I knew a chassis designer who worked at TWR. The cars in the collection could be driven by them, which included the only road going V12 XJ-220.

However the 15 was limited to the official test driver only due to its, err twitchyness.

[Gibbler290]

While, upon further research, JMF II had a decent but not stellar racing career in his own right this seems like fairly weak provenance to me.

[Greenmantle]

Gibbler290 said:

While, upon further research, JMF II had a decent but not stellar racing career in his own right this seems like fairly weak provenance to me.

agree
also have a look at the brass plate is it FanGio or FanCio?

[ducnick]

MCBrowncoat said:

Skeptisk said:

ducnick said:

These were very much of their time. It’s a Le Mans spec road car with practically zero aerodynamic downforce. To be driven fast by anyone other than proper group C drivers, used to this type of car would be very dangerous. Nowadays we expect much more grip.

I recall watching a video with Clarkson, who almost managed to crash one whilst driving in a straight line on a runway. Having said that, the new owner probably won't drive it so not a real problem.

He memorably wrote in the Magazine that if you farted the back end would step out.

You just need to look back at pictures of group c cars in their high and low downforce configurations to see the issue. As a road car to be driven by untalented mortals, this should have been in a higher than high downforce config with a massive wing as it had bugger all ground effect and would have really benefited from low speed high downforce at the expense of top speed. However it ended up with bodywork that gave it less downforce than the xjr9 in full Le Mans low drag spec. Thus it was always going to be a bit of a hairy ride that required very judicious use of the throttle and perfectly judged corner entry speed!

[Richard-390a0]

WPA said:

patmahe said:

Race provenance doesn't come much higher than raced by Fangio so if that's what you're after this is one of few options unless you can afford his actual F1 cars if any are for sale.

Apart from the fact it was his nephew.

Exactly it's not 'the' Fangio is it!

[asci.white]

MCBrowncoat said:

Aren't these supposed to be terrible?

"Pretty, but ste"

They were a handful and had to be respected so no. A decent driver could get the most out of the chassis and power.

[thegreenhell]

No discussion about XJR-15s is complete without this

[samoht]

Looking back it's astonishing that Jaguar ended up producing two separate unrelated 200mph supercars in the early 90s.

I understand the XJ220 was the more 'in-house' project (albeit started from the 'Saturday Club' of enthusiastic engineers), while the XJR-15 was born from Tom Walkinshaw's irrepressible freelancing as the guy running Jaguar's racing team. I think there was some feeling in Jaguar that the XJ220, shorn of its originally promised V12, was being shown up by the TWR car which actually did have a dozen cylinders, hence the XJR-15 was repositioned as a "racing car" with the one-make series to increase the gap between it and Jaguar's other supercar.