Goodwood Track Star: Broadspeed Jaguar XJ12C

Please enjoy the video below of a screaming 1977 Broadspeed Jaguar XJ12C rip up a historic Goodwood race as it initially did in the ’70s Euro Touring Car Championship. The howling 12-cylinder engine pours out a sweet mechanical soundtrack that must be heard clearly in the neighborhoods surrounding the circuit. The mythical short career of this monster Broadspeed XJ12C touring car with its epic echoing 12-cylinder is honored well in the vid brought to us by Goodwood Road & Racing; they appear to have a soft spot for this British bad boy, just like us.

Ralph Broad’s racing team, Broadspeed, first envisioned the slimmer XJS coupe for their racing campaign when Jaguar pushed them into the XJ12C Coupe, which they altered quite a bit to put it into contention. Released in 1976 as an answer to the Euro-built American Ford Capris and German 3-Series who dominated the Euro Touring Car Championship, it killed, but it also killed itself.

This wide-body XJ Coupe took the racing circuit by storm with podiums galore when it was running on-point. Reliability issues led to its short career of routine racing weekends getting pole position in qualifying then retiring from the race early. No question it was a winning car, but it needed a larger company to back its formula for winning.

Their formula killed it for a couple of years. Broadspeed did all they could to lighten up the super-heavy XJ12C, add the ultimate braking package with help from Lockheed, and squeeze out all the power they could. Horsepower numbers anywhere from 550 to 600 HP, from what I’ve found around the web. Judging from the video of the big heavy XJ Coupe sliding sideways through corners, it must have plenty of punch to snap the back out.

We see these mythical track stars come every so often and they’re usually from Jaguar or similar small batch luxury automakers. How would you feel if Jaguar produced another XJ Coupe like the S-Class Coupe or 6-Series? Do you think there is a market for large Jaguar Coupes again? How did you like the exhaust, life changing right?

Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>

Via [GoodWood]