Jaguar World Magazine XFR road test April 2009 Back Issue

Question. What do Jaguar’s ex-works
long-nose D-type, XKD 605, and
the XFR have in common? Answer.
At first glance, not a lot – although,
surprisingly, they do share one characteristic in
that they are both hugely tractable at low-speed.
The reason I know this is that having been
fortunate enough to sample the new XFR (and XKR)
on road and track, I was then extremely fortunate to
be offered the chance for a quick drive in the JDHT’s
long-nose D-type. Quick in the sense of it being brief,
not going fast you understand. In fact, it was the not
going fast part of the brief drive that revealed just
how tractable the 53-year-old racer is.
As you can imagine, when jumping into an
historic Jaguar that’s worth several million pounds for
the very first time, even in a deserted car park as was
the case here, trying to drive it quickly is right at the
bottom of the ‘bright ideas’ scale. Especially when
you are editor of a Jaguar magazine. So I have no
problem in admitting that, after stalling it once (the
racing clutch having about 1in of travel),
I tootled off, changed into second,
and left it there for the duration
of the drive. And that was
just fine by the D-type.