XKR BUYING GUIDE
IF YOU want to buy a highperformance sports coupe or convertible that boasts a sub-six-second 0-60mph time and that has aged and depreciated sufficiently to become a borderline classic, what would you choose? A Mercedes SLK for £2,000- £7,000 perhaps? OraMaserati 4200GT from around £7,000? Or maybe it’s time to invest in Jaguar’s fastest steel-bodied sports car, which was manufactured between 1998 and 2005, the top-of-the-range XKR. Initially powered by a supercharged 370bhp 4.0-litre V8, it was stretched to 4.2 litres in 2002 giving a power output of 400bhp. Production finished in 2005 when the aluminiumbodied XK X150 was introduced.
The XKR is still regarded as a highperformance sports car. With a 0-60mph time of a mere 5.2 seconds, its performance credentials are nothing to be ashamed of and it still looks like a modern sports car, even if it is a couple of decades old. However, because it rests somewhere between the markets of ‘old sports cars’ and ‘classics’, values are reasonable. At the time of writing, we found a 1999 XKR 4.0 for sale with 124k on the clock for a seemingly bargain price of £3,800, but most examples began at around £7,000 for the coupe and a few thousand more for the convertible.
Cheap isn’t always best, though, and the more you spend the more you can demand, such as a full service history and evidence that many of the problems we outline over the following pages (such as corrosion, worn suspension, plastic timing chain tensioners and gearbox issues) have been addressed. Many of these could have been expensive to put right, and will make a car with an average 22mpg-23mpg and £325 road tax seem like value for money – which, for a sports car that’s around half the cost of an equally fast Aston Martin DB7 or less than a quarter of the cost of a Ferrari 456, they are.
Look for rust
The X100 model of XKR has a steel body, so corrosion can be a major problem in a number of areas. Start by looking underneath the car at the front footwells and also check the carpets inside are dry; there is a small panel fitted
