The best-looking Jaguar since the E-Type, today’s Nice Price or No Dice XKR has the muscle to back up that handsome bodywork. Let’s see if the price is just as hunky.
In “Truckin’,” off their 1970 album American Beauty, The Grateful Dead advised us to ‘just keep truckin’ on,” adding to our lexicon, ‘What a long strange trip it’s been.’ According to Bob Weir, one of the band’s founders and a co-writer of the song, Truckin’ is about the group’s life on the road, the ups and downs, and the troubles they got into when on tour.
If the thought of going out on the road with a jam band like the Dead (RIP) holds any appeal, maybe as a roadie or a fawning groupie, then perhaps an actual truck would be a handy-dandy way to do so. The custom-wrapped and supercharged 2021 Ford F-150 we considered yesterday would be a stylish way to roll into town, but at $49,000, most of you thought it was Ticketmaster-level too expensive. That price struck a sour note in the comments and ended up earning the truck a massive 98% No Dice loss in the vote.
What once was
Jaguar is, for all intents and purposes, a dead cat. For almost half a year, production has been shuttered on all its models. That’s left the company’s dealers to lean exclusively on service (likely still very lucrative, this is Jaguar, after all) and to practice their thumb twiddling. Fortunately, most Jaguar dealers are multi-brand outlets and, in all likelihood, are still selling Jaguar’s healthier sister brand, Land Rover.
To be fair, Jaguar did show off a concept car earlier this year, a pink affair the company designed in Minecraft. That concept may or may not portend some future offering from the marque. Still, until the time something new materializes (cough*it probably never will*cough), we have only older Jags with which to fulfill our feline fixation.
This 2003 Jaguar XKR is just such a car, and this model is a humdinger. A derivation of the XK8, and differentiated from that model by a two-liter Eaton supercharger nestled in the warm bosom of its AJ8 V8 engine’s vee, the XKR was Jaguar’s top coupe for over two decades.
A very pretty kitty
First launched in 1998, two years after the XK8 made its debut, the XKR features some subtle bodywork enhancements to go along with its supercharged engine. Those include a mesh grille in the E-Type-emulating nose, functional vents in the bonnet, and a small spoiler atop the boot lid.
Everything else is shared with the XK8 coupe, and here, in Silver over a creamsicle leather and walnut (the creamsicle stick) interior, it presents as handsome and elegantly aggressive. Chromed seven-spoke alloys underpin and appear to be in laudable shape. No word is given on the status of the tires on those wheels, though.
As noted, the engine is supercharged, sharing its Eaton twin-screw blower with the contemporary Ford F-150 Lightning. As a 2003 model, this car features the larger 4.2-liter engine. The earlier cars had to make do with a smaller 4.0-liter engine. With the blower producing 11 pounds of boost, the bigger motor generates a stonking 400 horsepower and 408 pound-feet of torque. Paired with the standard ZF six-speed automatic operated via Jag’s weird “J-Gate” console shifter, the engine can propel the big cat to sixty from a standstill in under six seconds.
English drawing room
According to the ad, this XKR has 128,064 miles on the clock. That’s Baby Bear just right—not too low to mean everything has dried up from lack of use, nor too high, having worn the car out. Being a coupe means that it is rarer than the convertible (9,661 produced versus 13,895 drop tops). It also offers a stiffer, most likely less creaky body, and doesn’t suffer the ticking time bomb of the convertible’s hydraulics.
Along with the perfectly serviceable and seemingly unmarred exterior, this Jag’s interior seems equally up to the task. The seats are only lightly bolstered, this being more of a GT than an out-and-out sports car, and those show little wear from occupants entering and exiting. The back seats are nigh on useless, offering space only suitable for amputees. Still, the covering looks intact even if the space appears uninviting. The dashboard is a massive wall of walnut into which are set the instruments, some HVAC vents, and a cute little screen for the car’s computer. That shows the interior’s age, as does the mass of buttons below and the cassette deck stereo set amid them. Despite that old-school look, it’s all there and appears to be working.
Does X mark the spot?
A clean title and a history absent any excitement or accidents is promised by the seller, as well as a clean bill of health from the smog tester (this is a California car). Other than that, the ad is exceedingly light on history or details regarding the car’s condition outside of what is observable in the pictures. That means it better have an aggressive price, and at a $6,000 asking, it’s now time for us to weigh in on how aggressive the seller has been.
What’s your opinion on this hot cat coupe and that $6,000 asking? Does that have you thinking this is a deal? Or does that make you not a cat lover?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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