A Jaguar with the Heart of an MG

The few of you who follow this humble blog know that I loves me some high-po Jaguars. I even 'own' a Jaguar XJR9 in my Gran Turismo 4 garage.

On one of my last trips to the Rolex 24 at Daytona I was startled to see an honest-to-goodness Jaguar XJ220 in one of the infield parking lots. It was gorgeous in dark maroon metallic and boy was it BIG. Compared to a Jaguar XJS, it is 30 inches longer and 10 inches wider.

This hot cat was supposed to have a version of Jaguar's loverly V12 engine, but due to emissions issues and cost constraints, the engineers at TWR (Jaguar's engine consultants) had to find a suitable substitute.

It was around this time that the World Rally Cup rulemakers banned Group B and that left the folks at MG (and Rover, too) with a stock of pretty hot V6 engines that powered the MG Metro 6R4 rally car. TWR reckoned that TWO turbochargers would more than make up for the loss of half the cylinders and proceeded to buy the rights to the engine. TWR coaxed the little V6 into making 549 HP.

Jaguar eventually made 281 XJ220s with copies going to Elton John and the Sultan of Brunei.

And that, kids is how an MG engine wound up in a Jaguar supercar.