Green goddess
AS ANY good marketing expertwill tell you, history sells. It’s why a brand new, all-electric panel van, the Morris JE, closely resembles the classic J-type from 1949, or why a Finnish communications company continues to use the once-popular Nokia brand for its mobile phones. Linking a new product to one that is well established is a proven method of giving it some ready-made heritage.
It’s for this reason that the first 25 XJR-S 6.0s from 1989 were all painted in a familiar shade of dark green: it instantly linked them to Jaguar’s iconic racing models of the past.
The R-S wasn’t a new model, though, having arrived the year before. In May 1988, JaguarSport – a separate entity owned 50:50 by Jaguar and its then racing partner, Tom Walkinshaw Racing – was established to create sportier versions of the company’s existing range. The car’s image was closely associated to TWR’s Jaguar-branded racing cars, which
