1993 Jaguar XJ220

There’s a tightly wrought intensity to the XJ220’s curvaceous silhouette. It screams haunched aggression. But this isn’t some primped, perfumed and preternatural piledriver, just a polite, effortless and hugely capable machine that’s disturbingly physical in its message. Drive one hard and your metabolism takes a battering; the sheer drama of being able to reach 100 mph in under eight seconds while detonating huge shards of sound from its twin-turboed 3.5-liter V6 leaving the driver strangely detached from the surreal madness of it all.”—Richard Heseltine, Classic and Sportscar, October 1999.

In the mid-eighties, when the supercar was born, Jaguar didn’t have a car to compete alongside the fabulous Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959, even though it had the same racing heritage. Jim Randle, the head of Jaguar’s Engineering department, had an idea for such a car but active pursuits distracted the company from being in the supercar league

In 1988, after four...