Cor - there's a manual Jaguar XJR for sale
Straight six, rear-drive, three pedals... remember when Jag made an M car?
The renaissance of the manual gearbox can’t have passed you by. When even Ferrari had had to relent and felt the need to (sort of) reintroduce six speeds and three pedals, something’s afoot. No high-profile automotive press conference is complete these days without mention of a manual. BMW reminds us most months the M2 can have a stick, plus all manner of weird and wonderful conversions are going on. Even the automated manual is being looked on more favourably as we enter the late '20s.
All of which confirms what we already knew: enthusiasts crave engagement and interaction over outright speed. A manual - gears of any kind - offers an unrepeatable kind of sensation. As so many of those feelings and imperfections associated with cars feel to ebb away, so there’s a clamour to get some back. Especially when they’re as satisfying as a manual gearbox.
The Jaguar XJR might not immediately strike you as a car ripe for ditching the automatic. It was for many decades the pinnacle of Jaguar’s four-door saloon range, the last word in luxury, refinement and panache. Those traits don’t really lend themselves to a manual gearbox. But the XJR was also the sporting flagship, and Jaguar has always (perhaps to a fault) made cars for the keen driver. So when it came to making its first in-house XJR (the original having been done by TWR), a manual was absolutely on the cards. It was only following what had come before, in fact.
This is one of the precious few. And if you put aside what ‘XJR’ conjures up and consider the raw stats, the appeal is plain to see. Here’s a car with a supercharged straight-six up front (so throttle response will be good), 326hp (not too much to handle), a kerbweight under 1,900kg and rear-wheel drive. Consider it a sports saloon in XL (with yards of wood veneer) and the manual XJR makes more sense.
The market didn’t really see it that way. Much like the later F-Type manual, in fact, Jaguar’s laudable concession to enthusiasts didn’t result in many sales: just 102 right-hand-drive, three-pedal cars were ever made. The XJR would be automatic from then on until its demise, and another manual Jaguar now looks as likely as another Maggie Thatcher administration.
All of which makes a car like this a fascinating footnote in fast Jag history. The two-door XKs never got a manual gearbox and neither did any of the supercharged V8 saloons, but this 4.0-litre did. The lever for the Getrag doesn’t look out of place, either, probably as the J-gate always took up so much room; the clutch only looks as odd in the footwell as the rest of the pedals.
You’d have to imagine, moreover, that a manual XJR would be even more cherished than the auto equivalent. This is the derivative you’d really have to seek out, the Jag for the most committed fans, and you’re hardly going to go to all that effort to neglect it. A manual XJR is a very, very rare thing indeed. Certainly this one wears its 31 years well, inside and outside hard to meaningfully fault. After 80,000 miles it isn’t perfect, but it’s damn good, and surely use is what’s best for such a driver-focused spec. Something so explicitly designed for the person behind the wheel to get stuck in with shouldn’t be cooped up.
The asking price is £20k, or exactly the same as a similar car was offered at four years ago. Its rarity means a premium over the autos, though they seemingly aren’t skyrocketing. All the more reason to get out and enjoy one of Jaguar’s most curious creations; a manual XJR may not be appreciating, but it’s surely not going to depreciate much either. After all, the fascination with three pedals doesn’t look like it's going anywhere.
SPECIFICATION | JAGUAR XJR
Engine: 3,980cc straight-six, supercharged
Transmission: 5-speed manual, rear-wheel drive, limited-slip differential
Power (hp): 322@5,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 378@3,050rpm
MPG: 21
CO2: NA
First registered: 1995
Recorded mileage: 83,750
Price new: £45,450
Yours for: £19,995
An extra 50bhp is easily attainable with a remap and pulley upgrade.
And I have just this week bought a Series 2 4.2 with a manual box, so we will see how that goes.
I just find the premium for the manual XJR a little too much, and of course the holy grail XJ- the manual coupe are silly money, and very rare.
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