Category: Exotic Sports 
Price Range: £69,505 to £78,400
Performance to match the looks, exquisite ride and refinement.
Boot's too small, cabin's too ordinary.
A brilliant combination of performance, comfort and flair; now with an engine that delivers on the XK's looks.
The new XKR has more headroom, shoulder room and front-seat legroom than the old one; the main benefit is that the driver's leg doesn't rub against the centre console so much. But the rear seats remain essentially parcel shelves, with room for pre-school children at a pinch.
The boot is ludicrously small. The coupe has a hatchback opening, which provides easy access to what little space there is. The convertible has a conventional boot, but it's smaller than it looks from outside because of the need to make way for the lowered roof. The convertible's soft-top is a lovely piece of work, well insulated and quick to operate - just press a button and let the electro-hydraulics get on with it - but even with the wind deflector in place you're subjected to a lot of buffeting when you drive the convertible at a decent speed with the roof down.
The XKR's retuned suspension is much stiffer, to give less body roll during fast cornering, yet the ride comfort is just as compliant and absorbent on rough surfaces as you expect from a Jaguar. In both the coupe and the convertible it does its job brilliantly, holding the road with a rare determination. The refinement of the drivetrain is first rate, too.
While the exterior is a big step forward design-wise, the Jag's dash layout is just a bit too ordinary. It's laudably simple, helped by the easy-to-use multifunction touchscreen that gets rid of a lot of buttons and dials, but it's oddly plain.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Jaguar XKR
wrote on 24 03 2007