One of our longstanding customers has a passion for rallying. He is a former Jaguar Apprentice, Senior Jaguar Development Engineer and was also part of the small Jaguar team that developed the XJ-S in the early seventies and therefore has a personal interest in the XJ-S.
Combining the two was a natural choice for Ed Abbott of Abbott Racing in Maningtree. Recently Ed acquired a very special 1980 V12 XJ-S and after fitting a set of Koni Classic dampers and some other Abbott tweaks, has started competing in some historic tarmac rallies across the UK.
In the picture you will see ‘the big cat’ tackling the mountain section of the Isle of Man whilst successfully competing in all three legs of Man in April this year. More recently Ed has done the three Castles Rally in Wales, finishing well up the order after matching the top Escort RS2000 test times. He has also recently completed the Hero “Challenge” last weekend where the Jag managed to set the fastest time in one stage before a sensor forced retirement.
So, the Jaguar XJ-S V12, which is the only one of its kind rallying in Europe at this level, has proved it can still show a clean pair of heels to a lot of opponents, not bad for a 37 year old car, running with standard Koni Classic gas monotube dampers.
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