2000 Red Jaguar Xj8 Vanden Plas on 2040-cars

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Jay Leno's Garage drives Steve McQueen's 1956 Jaguar XKSS

Steve McQueen might be the coolest American male of the 20th century. With movies like Bullitt and Le Mans, McQueen established himself as the king of cool of his era, and on the list of actors you would pick for a fantasy racing team - he or Paul Newman are the natural first choices. The latest Jay Leno's Garage video highlights one of McQueen's most special cars - a 1956 Jaguar XKSS.
Just 16 XKSS models were made because a fire at the Jaguar factory halted production. It was meant to be a street version of the company's very successful D-Type racer, with a modified version of its 3.4-liter straight-six-engine and a four-speed manual gearbox. McQueen clearly had an eye for great vehicles. He drove his Jag around Los Angeles years after it was a cutting-edge piece of technology. Since then, it became part of the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA. Autoblog's The List even took a ride in it when the show visited the museum.
The XKSS is one of the pinnacles of automotive design of the '50s, and its association with McQueen makes this example even more extraordinary. Leno is in love with the car from the moment he sees it, and it's hard to argue with him. Between its emphasized curves and raspy exhaust, this is one sexy Jag. Scroll down to get an eyeful and earful from one of McQueen's favorite cars.

Lister teases 675-hp, 200-mph Stealth SUV

In the middle of 2018, Lister unveiled what was then called the LFP, intended to be the world's fastest SUV. The initials stood for Lister F-Pace and the dark green hulking beauty was based on, surprise, the Jaguar F-Pace SVR. Except where the F-Pace SVR used a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 producing 550-horsepower to claim a 176-mile-per-hour top speed, the LFP would wring that engine out to 675 horsepower in order to hit 200 miles per hour. Since that time, Lister's rolled out other models such as the F-Type convertible-based LFT-C 666 and Knobbly roadster continuation cars. At last, the LFP is ready for primetime, and it brings the new name of Lister Stealth with it. According to CEO Lawrence Whittaker, all the firm is waiting on is for the UK's lockdown to end, then the high-rise double-ton party can start. For now, we have a teaser video with a few quick visuals of the dangerously aggressive bodywork and a microphone-melting clip of someone dancing on the throttle. Save for the audio distortion, it looks and sounds superb. The ingredients of the transformation from F-Pace SVR to Stealth remain secret. As Pistonheads pointed out, the 675-hp Lister Thunder, based on the F-Type SVR hardtop, installed a new supercharger pulley, air filter and intercooler, a freer exhaust, and a remapped ECU to unlock 100 more horses. It's reasonable to expect the same template as a starting point for the Stealth. If the crossover can hit its 3.5-second mark from zero to 62-miles per hour, it will beat everything we can think of that isn't a Tesla, and the Stealth will top all comers if it nails the promoted top speed. Whittaker said production stops at 250 units, with orders having already come in. The price starts at "around GBP140,000," equal to about $175,000 greenbacks. Tiff Needell, who raced Lister cars in the 1990s, has been lined up for video presentation work once the proper launch takes place. If we're lucky, Needell will be the one to show and tell us what the Stealth can do, occasionally sideways, with lots of smoke. Related Video:

2019 Jaguar I-Pace gets official 234-mile range rating

The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace is officially rated to travel as far as 234 miles on a single charge of its battery pack. That's down slightly from the 240 miles initially promised when the slinky electric crossover was first unveiled here in the States. And, while it's roughly equal to the base version of the Tesla Model X, that's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. Quoting maximum electric range without considering the capacity of a car's battery pack is the same as quoting the maximum driving range of a gasoline-fueled vehicle without considering how many gallons of gas the tank holds. The I-Pace's battery pack is rated at 90kWh. The Model X's smallest pack is 75kWh. So the Tesla can go about the same total distance as the Jaguar using significantly less energy. It's not just Tesla that boasts greater efficiency figures than the Jaguar. Chevy manages to eke 238 miles out of the Bolt EV's 60kWh battery pack, and Hyundai gets 258 miles from the Kona Electric's 64kWh pack. These vehicles certainly don't all play in the same market segments, and there are a lot of variables to consider. For instance, the Jaguar's 4.5-second 0-60 rating is quicker than the Model X's 4.9-second rating, and its advertised power output of 394 horsepower and 512 pound-feet of torque is higher than Tesla's for the 75D (though Tesla's actual power numbers aren't really advertised in traditional hp and lb-ft figures). But even if cars like the Model X, Chevy Bolt, and Hyundai Kona EV aren't directly comparable across the board, their range and battery capacity figures do help us understand the relative efficiency of each specific vehicle. The efficiency of electric vehicles rated by the EPA is expressed as a MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) figure. The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace's figures of 80 city, 72 highway, and 76 combined MPGe don't compare favorably with the Tesla Model X's 91 MPGe city, 95 MPGe highway and 93 MPGe combined ratings. It'll be interesting to see how much EV buyers care about the Jaguar's comparatively poor MPGe ratings, but they will definitely have an impact in the real world. In practical terms, what all of this means is that the Jaguar I-Pace is going to use more electricity per mile than the Tesla Model X. And that means it's going to cost more to drive the same distance in the Jag when compared to the Tesla, or just about any other modern long-range EV that's currently on the market. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party.