For the 97 body style run? This car would have been fun with it instead of the silly sport mode.

 

I must assume you are talking about a manual transmission, if that is the case you are correct.

 

yeappers

 

Or at least some paddle shifters. They could have left it as an auto and installed paddle shifters to make it easier to select the gear you want to be in. With the J-gate it's tough to pick the specific gear when hurtling through curves. Even my wife's Mazda has a sport mode where you can tap the shifter forward to upshift and backwards to downshift. It just shifts it one gear at a time.

I think they considered the car more of a GT than a sports car. That's why it has the silky smooth ZF tranny.

 

Simple fit some shifters or fit a manual gearbox,many have done it this side of the pond.

It aint cheap and it aint easy,but it can be done!!!

 

My 05 Dodge Magnum has the auto with the tap thingy you can do to the shifter to make it a little fun, more fun then the J gate.

 

I kinda wish it were manual some of the time. But I would rather do the twin screw conversion (which I'm kinda preparing for with a completely new exhaust system) rather than spend the money to convert it to manual.

 

If this car was manual the wife would not want it, it is her car. But if it was a manual I would have smoked the tires off of it the first week we had it.

 

I have done manual conversions, the hardest part is the box of tricks to fool your TCM the auto box is still there. A friend of mine also has a manual XKR which Elite here in the UK developed the 'little black box' on.
I first did it 12yrs ago on an XKR engine and dropped the lot into my XJS



I was also playing with the front and yes if you look closely that is an XK nose cone held on with duct tape lol.

My track car is a manual with a stand alone ECU, I still insist it would be so much better to dump the OE ECU, the original was designed to work with an auto, you will not be able to map it properly.

And you are right it is not cheap, Norman is trying desperately to make a kit, the prices he has come up with so far will be around the £8-9K mark fitted thats $12-14K for you guys, it is why I never offered a kit myself it is why Elite dropped the idea also IMO.

Jaguar did not make a manual XK (apart from the XKRR which I like to add bore a remarkable similarity to my setup) because at the time Jaguar was owned by Ford which also owned Aston Martin and they thought it would hurt Aston sales, and I reckon they was right

 

Paddle shifters or flappy gear box in Tog Gear lingo was not as common as this decade's rides . Today, I see even some compact cars come with that . I would not lose a sleep for it lol

I believe Jaguar XK is more a luxury touring car ,less pure sports car and when thinks get fancier you know you get more automatic stuffs .
Don't worry even Aventador comes with the auto tranny