2012 Jaguar Xj L Portfolio Sedan 4-door 5.0l on 2040-cars

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Jaguar Land Rover's latest tech makes roads safer for bikes [w/video]

Safety in automobiles isn't just about protecting the occupants anymore. It's about protecting pedestrians who might be struck by an automobile, and as Jaguar Land Rover is demonstrating, it's about protecting cyclists as well. The latest experimental safety system from the British automaker is called Bike Sense, and it builds upon technologies the company has demonstrated recently, taking them a step further to make the road safer for those riding on two wheels. The system uses a combination of colors, sounds and vibrations to alert the driver of a potential hazard that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. Demonstrated on an XJ sedan, the system identifies nearby two-wheeled vehicles as pedal-powered or motorized, and alerts the driver accordingly. If a cycle is passing a the vehicle's blind spot, the top of the seat will vibrate to virtually "tap" the driver on the left or right shoulder, prompting him or her to look over that shoulder for the hazard. LEDs inside the cabin will then illuminate amber to red in the direction that the bike is passing. The system will even chime a bicycle bell or motorcycle horn as the two-wheeled vehicle approaches, and vibrate or stiffen the accelerator pedal if the driver keeps moving towards the obstacle. And if an occupant of the parked vehicle starts to open the door into the path of moving vehicle, it'll flash a light, sound an alarm and even vibrate the door handle to warn the occupant of the oncoming hazard. We could imagine the alerts getting a little distracting, but JLR says the system is designed to prioritize potential hazards when their are groups of pedestrians, bicyclists and/or motorcycle riders on a busy urban street. This is, of course, just the latest in a long string of new systems JLR has under development, following such technologies as the Transparent Bonnet, the Smart Assistant, the Virtual Windscreen for track sessions and the 360 Virtual Urban Windscreen for city driving. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Reliving the Jaguar XJ220 with a father-son duo

Jaguar may have canceled the C-X75 project, but there was a time when the Leaping Cat marque did make supercars. Sure, there were the XJR-9 and XJR-15 homologation specials made by TWR, but more famous was the XJ220. Although its reign may have lasted only a year before the McLaren F1 came along, for a brief time in the early 1990s, the XJ220 was the fastest car in the world – which is even more impressive when you consider that it was only powered by a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 when its rivals were using mostly V8s and V12s. That makes the XJ220 a rather noteworthy supercar from the dawn of the 200-mph era. The thing is, while Jaguar has come to embrace the XJ220 as an exceptional part of its history, it doesn't have the time or energy to devote to servicing the 275 that were made between 1992 and 1994. So it turns to Don Law Racing. The father-son team – made up of a master mechanic and his hot-shoe offspring – is tasked with keeping the XJ220 alive both in body and in spirit, and do so with a great deal of well-deserved pride. Drive went out to their workshop in Staffordshire to tell their story.

Xcar focuses on famed Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis

If you have any interest at all in motoring history, especially when it comes to European sports car racing from the '50s and '60s, do absolutely whatever you can to set aside 38 minutes for this interview with former Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis from XCar. Dewis had a hand in developing the British brand's vehicles from 1952 to 1985, and as expected over that time, he amassed some fantastic stories. Xcar did a great job of teasing a few of those great tales out of him here. From the very beginning, Dewis was gifted with a natural talent to read a car as a test driver. When he was just 16, he was taken out on his first chance to evaluate a vehicle and picked out even more intricacies than his instructor. Dewis eventually wound up at Jaguar, and that's where his career really took off. Among his many accomplishments there, he had a role in developing disc brakes both for racing and the road, set multiple world top speed records, and helped bring the E-Type to the world. Dewis even made the famous overnight drive in an XKE convertible from England to display it at the Geneva Motor Show. Dewis tells a first-hand account of being in the Jaguar paddock during the tragic accident during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans that took the lives of dozens of spectators. It's a story that we usually can only read about or watch in black-and-white films. Hearing Dewis' side really brings this history to life.