THE HISTORY of the secondgeneration XJR begins with the development of Jaguar’s V8 engine, only the third all-new powerplant in the firm’s history.
“It really did demonstrate that we’d got to make a very significant leap forward to be competitive,” admitted thencief engineer Trevor Crisp back in 2007. “It was probably one of the catalysts, if you like, for asking how much further we could go with the current engine. Really, we felt we needed to start with a clean sheet of paper if we were going to leapfrog Lexus.”
Initially the development team headed by David Szczupak looked at a variety of engine configurations, including V10, V12, flat eight, flat six and V6. This was eventually narrowed down to a possible three-engine range of V6, V8 and V12, with the engine’s initial codename ‘AJ26’ simply the addition of the digits six, eight and 12.
A ten-cylinder design was rejected on the grounds of inherent design imbalance, while a V12 was sidelined on the grounds of complexity, cost and economy. It was also felt that by concentrating on reduced reciprocating weight and increasing the rigidity of the engine and transmission structure, it may have been possible to obtain refinement levels close to or even superior to the original V12. A veeconfiguration engine offered a compact package and refinement advantages, meaning that the eventual format chosen was a V8, with the added advantage of its appeal to the all-important US market.
There was a
