Maybe i should get one of these.
Ohhhhhhhh. That BRG makes the car absolutely stunning. I've had the hots for one of these for a long while. Anybody know the import (to US) requirements? Are the hurdles surmountable?
I had a customer buy a 220 last year which needed some work. It had a failed headgasket and serious oil leak problems. We pulled the engine and did a full re-seal and service. There is a rep for the 220's here in the states and he is very good with an excellent working knowledge of the cars and good access to parts out of the UK. We were surprised at the cost of parts which ran 2 or 3 times the cost of Ferrari prices for the same type parts. The car requires a lot of service, the oil pump which is mounted externally on the front cover tends to loosen and leak regardless of locktite or saftey wire. Gear box parts are NLA and even the gearlube Jag says you must use is NLA. None the less it is an awsome piece - TWR did the car, it's a GTP car without removeable bodywork. The motor comes on hard with no lag problems and all the controls are very positive and crisp. I had the chance to drive it a while prior to sending it home and was very impressed with the whole package. It is not easy to get in and out of but the cockpit is fine,but Jag-like. I would recomend anyone looking to buy a 220 should talk to the US rep about it. James Patterson Norwood Performance
F1 driver Martin Brundle was driving the XJ220 on this lap at Nardo, and it achieved 217.1MPH. It was stock, no tape over air ducts or anything, however after only hitting 212MPH they did remove the cats to achieve the higher speed. Brundle also said that the engineers calculated that if the car was being driven on a level straightaway instead of on the banked turns at Nardo that the actual top speed would have been 222.0MPH. The XJ220 used to have a make-specific race series that a few owners put together with some limited sponsorship. Seeing 20 of them running around road courses on late night ESPN2 in the mid-90s was surreal, and they seemed pretty reliable in that configuration. Rarely did one retire prematurely. Until the recent arrival of the Enzo, the XJ220 was the second fastest supercar on the planet, and though I'm not a fan per se (it's extremely long for my taste, longer than a Cadillac STS in fact) I do respect its speed for sure. This is a car that could drop 20+ car lengths on an F40 from a standstill to 150MPH, you sure as hell don't see that very often.
Importing an XJ220 is now entirely possible. Recent changes in importation regs make it easier to bring in a few different special cars. The XJ220 and the Porsche 959 have precedents established and can be brought in. My understanding is that they can not be used for regular road use, but may have more flexibility than a very restricted "show and display only" license. The reason that XJ220s are "reasonable" in price is because of the controversy in their production. They were initially announced and priced to have a v12 engine. A whole bunch of orders were taken. As I recall, the v12 motor was not ready and most if not all of the cars were built with turbo v6s. The performance did not suffer significantly but many of the people with orders had cylinder-envy and took Jaguar to court. I heard that for many years a hundred or so languished in a warehouse while the case dragged on. That negative association took the wind out of the enthusiasm sails of this model, and this is reflected in current prices.
i think there are still about 150 unsold in a warehouse somewhere in the uk. every so often somebody does some kind of expose on them. and the brand new never been put on the road price for these babies is about £120-150k or $250- $300k. cheap for this kind of performance. one of the major problems for this car is that it is made to run at high speed, and therefore better suited to europe, but the car is so big (especially long) that it can't easily be manouvered around european towns (i know i would hate it in central london and i normally drive a tr!). throw in the fact that even at this knock-down price, you are into current super car territory and then not even those with money and no sense want it because it doesn't have the same posing value as a murci or a vanquish or a 575. so there they sit.
First off only 283 total were made. Second, there aren't any left in a wharehouse somewhere. Grange Motors in England was authorized by Jaguar to sell off the last few factory new cars. The last new one was sold off by Grange Motors last year. There are some test miles only cars availabe but only from private owners, you can no longer be the first to take delivery.
Hire Indiana Jones to find them. They must be some somewhere. There are many American buyers out there drooling over this bargain Hypercar. 210-220 for how much ?
