THERE'S NO DENYING IT, Spring is in the air, and with it comes the desire for lovers of cabriolets to get their tops off … well, at least the roofs of their cars down. Timely then that I've had the opportunity to drive Jaguar's fastest, and most powerful roadster, the XKR-S Convertible (watch our video of the XKR-S cabrio being tested at the Nurburgring).
Ok, before we go any further, you might just want to take a deep breath here: the car will set you back £103,000. Yup: £103,000.
Now that you've picked yourself back up off the floor, I'll continue. Despite it's subtle, aggressive looks — which hint at something of a track-oriented mentalist — the XKR-S Convertible is a grand tourer in the traditional sense of days gone by (watch our video of the XKR-S cabrio being driven in the snow and ice in Finland).
Make no mistake, the XKR-S is a powerful beast. Its supercharged 5.0-litre V8 pumps out 542bhp — that's up from 503bhp in the standard XKR — and has bucketloads of torque. It also has the most wonderful angry bark from the sports-tuned exhaust.
Despite it's subtle, aggressive looks — which hint at something of a track-oriented mentalist — the XKR-S Convertible is a grand tourer in the traditional sense of days gone by.
While I had the good fortune to drive the car, roof down, in glorious Warwickshire sunshine — having collected the car from Jaguar's Heritage Motor Centre — it's easy to imagine it cruising the tree-lined country roads of the south of France.
But make no mistake, the XKR-S is a powerful beast. Its supercharged 5.0-litre V8 pumps out 542bhp — that's up from 503bhp in the standard XKR — and has bucketloads of torque. It also has the most wonderful angry bark from the sports-tuned exhaust.
Fast? You bet. It'll scorch from standstill to 62mph in 4.4secs, hit 100mph in 8.7s and carry on — where legal — to an eye-watering 186mph.
"Hold on: 186mph for a cabriolet?", I hear you ask. "Surely the car's chassis won't be stiff enough to cope with that?" How wrong you would be to have such concerns. Jaguar has always stressed the all-aluminium XK was designed from the off as a cabriolet as well as a coupe. The result is it loses little of the tin-top’s rigidity.
And just for good measure, the XKR-S gets uprated suspension — it's softer at the rear than the coupe — plus there's a modified exhaust. Oh, and styling tweaks deliver better downforce.
As you would expect, somewhat ironically, the soft-top is heavier than the coupe, in this instance by 47kg.
Fortunately the bulk of the additional weight is carried at the rear of the car, and as a result the weight distribution is actually better than that of the coupe.
The car feels firm, but thankfully it never feels uncomfortable. Actually, the cabrio seems to enjoy a greater degree of suppleness on the road than it's coupe cousin.
The result is a majestic grand tourer which can gobble up motorway miles, but is just at home on tight, narrow, twisty and lumpy B-roads in the UK. It's a very civilised piece of kit.
The cabin is a scrumptious place to be, and I never fail to smile when Jaguar's pop-up chrome gear control rises from the centre console: majestic.
What isn't so attractive is the 292g/km of CO2 emissions, and the quoted 23mpg: realistically, you'll be lucky to break 20mpg in real life conditions.
But to dwell on those figures is to completely miss the point. The Jaguar XKR-S Cabriolet is a full-on, hardcore, hairy-chested supercar which, very cleverly, never loses sight of the fact it is a serene grand tourer.
It is, without question, brilliant.
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Jim McGill