So, I was a little disturbed last year to realize that my 2015 JCNA Class M National Slalom championship time had been bested in 2016 by an XE. But I figured that it must have been a rare one-off situation and that my S-Type would still be competitive in the class. But I was wrong...

Last Saturday the local Jaguar club (Jaguar Association of New England (JANE) Home Page) held our first Slalom event of the year. Those events are held by Jaguar clubs in North America and are sanction by the national club (Jaguar Clubs of North America |). On this day we had 23 cars including a 1964 Shelby Cobra, a Morgan Aero 8, a bunch of Vettes, a Austin Healey 3000 with a Ford 5.0 V8 under the hood, a Fiat 500 Abarth (that the fellow bought 'cus he needed a reliable car...), an F-Type R, an XKR, an XK8, a couple of E-Types including one V-12, a Viper, me with my S-Type, and a new XE 35t.

I was having a so-so day (high 48s) and the fellow with the XE, who was not familiar with the course, was likewise pulling similar times.

But that all changed when that fellow offered to let me take a run in his car.

It was the first time I'd ever sat in an XE (and I did noticed that the interior really is a big step down in finish from my car...) and I was clearly unfamiliar with the steering, brakes, power, etc. So I went to the line intending to simply try to get a clean run around the cones. I was certainly not ready for the results.

In my first and only run I beat my best time of the day by almost 2 seconds. And, wow, that is a huge difference...

So I'm coming around to the conclusion that time really has passed and the S-Types and original XFs (other than the Rs of course...) have once and truly been supplanted by the current XEs (and probably XFs as well).

Time really has moved on and my car can now really start being considered vintage.

But ok, I've got to admit, there was one feature that I really think made a significant contribution to the how must faster the XE was around the course. I could set the XEs transmission in 1st so that, unlike my S-Type where I could only set it for 2nd allowing it to down shift on exiting corners when when I needed power to accelerate down the straight, the XE always had instant power when I needed it.

But just the same, numbers don't lie, particularly when I was behind the wheel on the same day on the same course.
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Jaguar - it's not an automobile, it's a Motorcar
2015 JCNA National Slalom Champion Class M
Current: '08 S-Type 4.2 "Satin Edition" (250.06 whp / 259.67 torque)
Past: '05 X-Type 3.0/auto Jaguar Racing Green

 

Not at all surprising. Our S-Types are now basically dinosaurs and even the STR is not particularly fast for its class. The S-Type has always been a great highway cruiser, not an autocrosser....