Finished in British Racing Green, this Jaguar competed in the World Endurance Championship in 1985.
While flipping through the vehicles listed on the Bonhams website and dreaming of a day where we will have the money to buy some of these incredible collectables, we came across this 1985 Jaguar XJR6 World Endurance Championship Group C Racing Coupe. That is quite a name, but this is quite a race car, relying on big displacement, naturally aspirated engines in an era where many cars were switching to smaller engines with forced induction.
Even though Tom Walkinshaw Racing and his 1985 XJR6 race cars bucked the system and stuck with their big engines, this car performed well during the 1985 season while also playing a key role in the development of the Jaguar race cars in the following years.
On December 1, 2018, this classic Jaguar race car will roll across the Bonhams auction block at The Bond Street Sale and when the final gavel sounds, the price is likely to be in the area of $3,000,000.
NA V12 Among Boosted V6s
In the mid-1980s, the world of endurance racing was going through a shift to shorter races and with the new racing formats came new cars. Many of the cars in Group C were powered by smaller, forced induction engines and Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) was part of that crowd, developing their own twin turbocharged V6. However, for the longer races including Sebring and LeMans, TWR found that their naturally aspirated V12 was still the better choice.
As a result, when many cars were running smaller engines, the then-new 1985 Jaguar XJR6maintained a big, naturally aspirated V12 and the car shown here was one of the first XJR6 models built for racing action. Along with two other cars, this Jaguar was hurriedly put together by TWR for the 1985 World Endurance Racing series and while competing in the Group C class, XJR6 number 52 logged top five finishes at tracks all over the world.
One of the Last V12-Powered Jaguar Race Cars Heading to Auction continued…
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