Tuned Jaguar XJL May Be the Sweetest-sounding Ride Around
Supercharged 5.0-liter V8 under the hood now produces 650 horsepower, with no consequence to the luxurious XJL driving experience.
It’s no secret that Jaguar builds fast cars. But that still doesn’t prepare you for how fast this long-wheelbase XJL is. At 17 feet long and over two tons, it’s a lot of car. As we quickly learn in this recent video from LivingLifeFast, a 650 brake horsepower supercharged V8 makes sure it gets out of its own way.
Despite the gorgeous red paint, red Jaguar badges and roaring V8, this XJL is still a bit of a sleeper. On top of its long wheelbase, it’s an Autobiography model, meaning it has the works inside. Power rear seats, tons of electronic goodies, rear TV screens. It’s more boardroom than sports car, and, of course, it has a price tag of over $155,000. Host Riccardo Senior visits with owner Jack in the English countryside, where, very quickly, we learn that this Jag also has the works under the hood.
Running down the list of mods, the owner, Jack, says: “There’s a company called Vizu who were paramount performance. They do a lot of Jaguar work, they’re like the…one to go to in the UK. And they’ve got a 650 conversion…they change the upper and lower pulleys on the supercharger, the induct system… he exhaust. We’ve got stage-three remap on the gearbox, stationary remap on the engine.”
Amazingly, he claims that this big cat is now putting out 650 horses and a whopping 850 pound-feet of torque.
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Surprisingly, Jack says that the weight of the car helps with traction on take off. He describes the engine note as a mix between an AMG and an F-Type Jag. And after a brief rundown of all of its many, many luxury features, they take it out for a spin. It turns out that the AMG-Jag description really isn’t far off.
After marveling over how comfortable the car is, they light it up. After Jack saying that he’s hit 181 miles per hour on the Autobahn in the Jag, they light the car up. One quick blip of the throttle (with that glorious noise) and Ricky is floored. “That was a crazy pull,” he shouts. All the while, he says that when they’re not flogging it, he feels like he could fall asleep.
Then he gets behind the wheel, and he’s left speechless, well, except for a few well-chosen expletives. “I didn’t think it would feel fast because of the weight,” Ricky says. But he’s blown away by the raw power of the car. The transmission is still mostly stock, so shifts aren’t DCT-caliber. However, fortunately, the brakes are massive and can handle the added power just fine.
In short, it’s one seriously impressive big car. We’re a little skeptical when Jack says he’d race a Bugatti Chiron in it, but other than that, we’re pretty sure that this thing could handle just about anything you could throw at it.
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