JaguarSport XJR-15

About this model

Soon after the XJR-9's famous Le Mans win, TWR boss Tom Walkinshaw decided to capitalise with a derived road car, somewhat tamer and kept completely secret from the management at Jaguar.

Initially, it was discussed that a raise in ride height and removal of the rear spoiler would be enough, but the result left something to be desired - XJR-9 designer Tony Southgate was quoted as saying 'It looked like a Mazda'. Therefore, responsibility for the styling was passed to Peter Stevens, notable for his contemporary restyling of the Lotus Esprit.

Lotus/McLaren designer Jim Router was brought on board and the team was given the monocoque from XJR-8 chassis J12-C-286, a car which Win Percy had crashed at Le Mans in 1987. It soon became obvious that the base wouldn't allow enough room for a road car, so the cockpit was widened by 75mm and the roof raised by 40mm, the A-posts moved to aid ingress and seal paths added to the doors.

Aside from these changes, the monocoque and suspension wer largely the same as found on the XJR-9, which made the R9R (as it was first called) the first production car to use a carbon fibre monocoque, predating both the Bugatti EB110 and McLaren F1.

Eddie Hinckley and Dave Fullerton were left responsible for the mechanicals, with the pair adopting the inboard pushrod-actuated suspension from the race car, and tucking the outboard rear suspension into the wheel wells to allow for underbody venturi tunnels. The V12 engine was de-stroked to 6.0 litres and mated to a five-speed manual gearbox.

The R9R's racing origins were obvious, but when it came to naming the car, a Jaguar employee convinced Walkinshaw that it should be branded as JaguarSport (the TWR/Jaguar partnership based on modifying Jaguar models) instead of TWR. Following the lineage of the racing cars, the car was renamed XJR-15 and marketed as a racing car that could be made road-legal, presumably not to annoy Jaguar management working on XJ220 development at the time.

Walkinshaw intended for two separate variants of the car to be sold: race-spec with a six-speed unsynchronised gearbox and road-spec car with said five-speed, slightly more road refinements and creature comforts. The race cars were to be used in a one-making series dubbed the 'JaguarSport Intercontinental Challenge', which would see three races in 1991 as support events for the Monaco, British and Belgian Grand Prix.

XJR-15s came at a price of $960,000 apiece, and JaguarSport were quickly making a profit as Walkinshaw had intended. The eight owners - plus eight TWR 'Works' entries - that signed up for the Challenge were able to either drive the cars themselves or hire professional drivers on their behalf, so the grid filled with recognisable names like Derek Warwick, Tiff Needell and David Brabham.

However, since TWR had been tasked with making the XJ220 road ready for Jaguar, Wailkinshaw discovered that Bridgestone was the only tyre company capable of producing rubber that could withstand a projected 220 mph top speed. A deal was struck, and this resulted in the XJR-15 switching over from Goodyear to much taller tyres, affecting the underbody ground affects and hurting the already troublesome handling.

Derek Warwick won the race at Monaco and the prize of a JaguarSport XJR-S. The same arrangement happened at Silverstone, but with Juan-Manuel Fangio, II, 45 years after his uncle's last ever win in the principality, but, when the chequered flag was waved at Spa, winner Armin Hahne received a $1 million cash prize.