It costs nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, might not be delivered for months and can't be driven at top speed unless you're on a race track.
But that hasn't stopped 1,500 Jaguar buffs from competing for a chance to buy Jaguar's new XJ220, one of the fastest sports cars with a maximum speed exceeding 200 mph.Jaguar is making only 350 of the sleek two-seaters.
"Why does anyone buy a fast car? I suppose it's the excitement of the acceleration more than anything else," said successful buyer John Billig, a 47-year-old private banker from London.
"I actually queued up at six o'clock in the morning," said Billig, who now has a year and a half to wait for delivery after recently plunking down a $92,000 deposit.
Jaguar is expected to begin delivering the numbered XJ220s later this month. A third will go to British buyers and the rest to car enthusiasts in about 40 other countries.
The car won't be exported to the United States because it meets only European Community standards for emissions and barrier crash tests. But Americans can import it as a private non-registered vehicle.
Jaguar claims the XJ220 is the world's fastest production-line sports car, with a top speed of 212.30 mph, although Bugatti argues its EB 110S is slightly faster at 218.75 mph.
With a price of 400,000 pounds, or around $736,000, few people will ever find out. By comparison, a Hyundai Excel from Korea costs between $7,000 and $8,000.
The XJ220 is actually in the middle of the supercar price range, starting at around $259,000 for the Lamborghini Diablo to $1.3 million for the Schuppan Porsche 962CR.
The new Jaguar is the brainchild of Jim Randle, who has since retired as Jaguar's director of vehicle and concepts engineering.
It is produced by JaguarSport Ltd., a joint operation owned by Coventry-based Jaguar PLC and Tom Walkinshaw Racing, a private British company that develops racing cars. The two got together in 1988 to develop high-performance versions of Jaugars.
Strong response to the XJ220 concept when presented at the Birmingham Motor Show in 1988 encouraged the two to produce the limited edition at a 95-worker plant in Oxfordshire in western England.
Hand-built in 12 stages, the car is available in left and right-hand drive but without power steering.
The Jaguar tradition is evident in the interior trim of wood and expensive leather. The speed comes from a 540-horsepower, 3.5 liter, twin-turbo V-6 engine.
Jaguar says the car will get 13.4 miles per U.S. gallon in city driving.
"The whole thing was to prove to the world that Jaguar is capable of engineering excellence," said Chris Baker, a manager of JaguarSport. "It's just to prove that Jaguar is the best."
Regardless of Jaguar's reasons, the project already is turning into at least a small bright spot in an otherwise dismal financial picture for the automaker, owned by Ford Motor Co. Jaguar has proven to be a money drain for Ford because of the recession and the British car company's uneven record on quality, automotive industry analysts say.
Billig, the London banker, already has seen a potential return on his investment. He said a dealer offered him a $313,000 premium for his car, No. 322, which isn't scheduled to be delivered until November 1993.
So far, reviews on the XJ220 have been mixed.
Auto Express magazine was enthusiastic, declaring in a recent issue: "The new Jaguar shows that Coventry can still crack the whip with a vengeance . . . "
But Michael Harvey, deputy editor of Autocar and Motor, said in an interview that the XJ220 was too long, too difficult to see out of, and potentially hard to drive.
The coupe has a large area of glass that sweeps over the driver and passenger like a cockpit.
"You have to know what you're doing," Harvey said.
Jaguar agrees with that last point.
"We will be offering owners high-performance driving courses. We do think it's sensible for them to have some kind of instruction," said Bill Donnelly, another manager for JaguarSport.