JAGUAR XK8 THE COMPLETE STORY

Graham Robson, one-time Jaguar apprentice and a motoring historian with several other Jaguar books to his credit, in Jaguar XK8: The Complete Story tells the story of one of the twentieth century's most beautiful sports car, from its conception to the end of the line for both it and the factory it was built in.

After a twenty-year production period, it was time for the venerable XJS to bow ut, but what was to replace it? Jaguar had been sold to Ford and was no longer as cash-strapped as it had been, but the XJS replacement would still have to be developed on an impossibly low budget and it would require a new engine.

The V12 that had powered many of the 115,330 XJS cars could not meet new, more stringent emissions legislation and parent company Ford didn't have an engine powerful enough for the new Jaguar sports car. Jaguar would have to design its own engine, only the fourth new Jaguar engine since the fabled XK engine was developed in 1949.

Announced at the 1996 Geneva Motor Show, the all-new XK8 coupé was in reality based on an XJS platform due to costs, but the body was unlike any Jaguar that had preceded it. A month after the coupe was launched came the convertible, first shown at April 1996's New York Motor Show.

The XK8 was an almost perfect design, so perfect that it changed little over its nine-year run. What it did get, though, was Jaguar's magnificent forced-induction engine, a 4.2-litre supercharged V8 that could propel it to a speed way in excess of the 155mph (ca. 249 km/h) speed limiter fitted as standard. It joined supercar territory, but like most sporting Jaguars did so at a cost way below that of an equivalent Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, or Ferrari.

As a value-for-money supercar, nothing could equal the big cat from Browns Lane, Coventry, and the only car to match it in looks was the Aston Martin DB7. This was no coincidence as the DB7 used the same basic underpinnings with a Jaguar-based engine, but it was a full £30,000 more expensive to have the more exclusive Aston.

In 2005, the XK8 bowed out with a 4.2S Limited Edition run-out model. In less than half the lifetime of its predecessor the same number of cars had left the factory, but it was time for a new model and a new factory, and the new alloy-bodied XK would be built at Castle Bromwich rather than Browns Lane, home of Jaguar since 1950.