2005 Jaguar XKR Coupe Test Drive

If James Bond had his choice of new cars today, chances are good this Jaguar XKR with its sleek appearance and stout performance would give Aston Martin some competition. It all would matter little to Ford Motor Company, owner of both English car makers now. Prices: US $81,330 base; as tested, $96,495. Warranty :4 years/50,000 miles.

The stunning exterior of the 2005 Jaguar XKR Coupe never failed to draw favorable comments from those it stopped in their tracks. There's a natural flow to its design that seems shaped by wind or water. The bonnet lifts from the rear, a nod to Jaguar's racing heritage. That hood/bonnet slopes steeply to a front grille of wire mesh; this model lacks the leaping Jaguar hood ornament. A series of louvers are cut in the bonnet on each side of center. These are functional, not decorative, louvers. Both rocker panels at the base of the car continue their line through the rear wheel well and merge with the rear bumper. Huge tires circle 20-inch spoked alloy wheels that add $6,000 to the base price (mental note: do not bump a curb when parallel parking!). The car sits low, yet entry and exit are not overly difficult. Visible through the wheels are massive Brembo brakes, painted red. Up front, leading the way at night, are Xenon headlights, standard at this level of car. On the rear deck lid is a small lip, and farther down, twin exhausts jut from cutouts in the bumper. Front and rear, the XKR has green badges proclaiming "Jaguar, Supercharged." Open the sizable door, note the word "Jaguar" on the chrome sill, and let's step inside.

Behold functional opulence. The interior of any Jaguar sets the standard for the rest of the automotive world and the 2005 Jaguar XKR Coupe is plush, convenient and fully functional for a driver with sporting intentions. Begin with the leather seats. There are four, but the two rear ones are essentially useless for adults. There's little head room and virtually no foot room. The seats appear to be there so the car can qualify for insurance rates lower than those for two-seaters. These are Recaro seats up front and they add $2,000 to the base price. They hug hips and rib cage, holding a driver and passenger in place for the high-speed cornering this beast is capable of. Wood trim has long been a Jaguar trademark and the burl walnut is plentiful but tastefully used in the XKR. The special leather and wood steering wheel, however, is a $300 option. Centered above the automatic transmission gear selector is a navigation system screen, standard on the car. Accelerator and brake pedal are polished metal. The steering wheel contains a number of redundant controls, including an adaptive cruise control we'll write about a bit later. Visibility is slightly compromised, as might be expected from a car with a roofline this low.

Few cars do more to help a driver stay out of trouble than the 2005 Jaguar XKR Coupe. Begin with adaptive cruise control, a $2,200 option on the tester. Such a control allows a driver to set a speed, which the car then attempts to maintain in traffic. If traffic slows, the system senses that fact and slows the Jaguar. Change to an open lane and the car accelerates to the preset speed. The allowed space to traffic ahead can be adjusted from tabs on the steering wheel. But this XKR went further. Around town, if I sped forward toward a slowing or stopped vehicle, the system beeped and flashed "Driver Intervention Needed". It was telling me that if I didn't do something, I'd wreck! And with 390 supercharged horsepower under the hood, it's easy to break traffic laws. This Jaguar wants to run. Seventy mph seems like a school zone speed. All is quiet inside this luxurious cabin, even at interstate speeds. Stopping the car is just as quickly done as speeding up. And cornering is at "whatever speed you like." The DVD navigation system could benefit from a rear-view camera, but the car did have ultrasonic parking assist in the rear. It also has stability control and a computer active suspension. Every needed safety feature is present.

The color of this 2005 Jaguar XKR Coupe is called Zircon Blue. I expected to dislike it, for safety reasons. The low-slung light blue Jaguar can blend in with sky and pavement. But it grew on me - and yellow would be terrible, don't you think, for an elegant coupe like this? All Jaguars seem to attract the "elegant" tag, but this one has that and a whopping dollop of performance and handling. That's what the "R" means in the XKR name. Racing. A supercharger sits atop a 4.2-liter V8 and pumps up the pressure prior to combustion. The 390 horsepower made by that engine rockets the XKR away without violence, thanks to a flawlessly smooth six-speed manual transmission and rear tires as wide as Delaware. Yet this cat is docile in city traffic. It easily transitioned from high-speed interstate (using adaptive cruise control) to congested inner city. There seems no penalty to pay for all this performance and handling prowess. I'll miss it. There are plenty of great cars to test, that's for sure, but the combination of elegance, power and prestige makes the 2005 Jaguar XKR Coupe a very fond memory for this writer.