BRITAIN IS full of motoring destinations, race tracks and museums. But one location seems to have it all – stunning scenery, epic roads, many of them with no speed limits and motorsport heritage the likes of which you won’t find anywhere else. It’s been on my ‘to visit’ list for some time, so when we were invited to join Scenic Car Tours on their Festival of Motoring tour in our newly acquired XKR, I jumped at the chance.
Getting There
As its name suggests, reaching the Isle of Man requires a ferry, usually from either Liverpool or Heysham and I opted for the latter, the seven-hour drive from my home in Kent giving me a chance to get to know a car I’d never even sat in, let alone driven. I’ve got extensive experience with our X350 XJ8 though and some aspects were familiar.
Its Aston DB7 sister car is an awful example of interior packaging, lacking headroom, legroom, rear seats worth mentioning or much in the way of a boot, but the Jaguar swallowed two large suitcases, a hefty camera case, drone, tripod, breakdown kit and various detritus without issue. Granted, the rear seats are purely theoretical, but the front is roomy – particularly compared to the DB7 – and the
