Jaguar releases its new muscle car: Jaguar XKR-S Version – 2012 – Part 4

Let’s get back to that last day of wet roads that I mentioned earlier. From the driver’s seat of the XKR-S, I followed Senior Editor Wayne Cunningham in the 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera S — not exactly a competitor for the Jaguar, but an interesting benchmark. The slippery conditions pretty much mitigated the Jaguar’s approximately 100-horsepower advantage over the German coupe, but even with a light foot and more than a few extra pounds to carry around every bend, the big Jaguar was able to hang fairly close to the rear bumper of the car that is easily the gold standard for vehicle handling. I was able to easily yaw the XKR-S around bends with the accelerator thanks to the Active Differential Control and the Sport mode’s more liberal levels of acceptable wheelspin.

This is a car that’s capable of long, “Top Gear”-esque power slides in the hands of a skilled driver; abrupt throttle inputs by a moronic one can generate snap oversteer on damp asphalt. But it doesn’t really feel like either of those behaviors is what the XKR-S wants to do. Save for a slight waggle of the tail when powering into a long, clear straight, the Jag was remarkably hesitant to do anything but grip and grip and grip. You wouldn’t know it by simply driving it, but the XKR-S is fitted with Jaguar’s Computer Active Technology Suspension (CATS, how clever). There are no obvious ways for the driver to interact with this system, though; it simply does what it does with remarkable transparency.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Mar 29 2012. Filed under Automobiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.