One of my favorite types of cars is the luxury sports sedan. This is a category that was invented by Jaguar with the S-Type in the 1960s. In essence, it is a luxury sedan that can perform the duties of a high-end luxury car and at the same time have sports car like performance. The better known more modern versions of these cars are the various BMW M5s, the AMG Mercedes sedans, Cadillac CTS-V, various Bentley Turbos of the 1980s and 90s, and the originator of the entire segment, Jaguar with models that fit this idea including our Pick of the Day the Jaguar XJR.
The XJR was first released as a performance version of the new Jaguar XJ400 version of the XJ series sedans. It would continue all the way up to the current car. To me this car was first fully developed as a model with the X300 series in 1994. These stunningly designed cars exude luxury but also have a bit of a performance look with wider wheels, body colored trim, and a mesh grill. It was not just good looks either, as under the hood lurked a supercharged 4 liter inline six engine with 322 HP. This gave the XJR some serious performance for the era with 0-60 times of 6.6 seconds and ¼ mile times of 14.9 seconds. While today these figures don’t sound amazing, in this era the XJR was just a bit slower than the BMW E39 M5 and had an interior that feels more like a British manor house than an automobile.
Unlike the M5, which routinely sell for north of $50,000 today, the XJR looks to be quite a bargain.
The specific XJR that is our Pick of the Day is this stunning 1995 XJR finished in Bright Turquoise paint with a light parchment full leather interior.
The car is being offered on ClassicCars.com by a dealer in O’Fallon, Illinois, and is stated to have covered only 52,000 miles from new. They describe the experience of driving this XJR by stating,” cruising in this is definitely going to be getting you some serious looks and head turns.”
This is a car that when new had a base cost of $69,950, and even at the time, people reviewing the XJR considered it a bargain at the price. This specific XJR is being offered at an asking price of only $21,000 which to me makes it one of the best values on a high-performance luxury sports sedan available today.
To view this listing on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.
