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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.

2014 Jaguar XFR-S is the power and the fury

If there's something wrong about a sedan with a 550-horsepower supercharged V8, we don't want to hear about it. Instead, we want to marvel at the car in person, which is fortuitous because Jaguar has officially unveiled the 2014 XFR-S at the 2012 LA Auto Show. That blown 5.0-liter V8 dishes up a full 502 pound-feet of torque, which is good enough to shuttle the four-door to 60 mph in a scant 4.4 seconds. And, thanks to a start stop system and a few other fuel-saving tricks, the 2014 XFR-S gets away without being hit by the gas guzzler tax.
That's all good news, but we're just as excited about the fact that engineers managed to crank up the vehicle's chassis stiffness by a ludicrous 30 percent. Stiffer dampers and springs also give the car a little more poise, and a wide-open exhaust lets the whole world know you're kicking down their door. You know, in case the electric blue paint and wild body work didn't tip your hand. Check out the full gallery above for a closer look.

Jaguar F-Pace will debut in Frankfurt

Jaguar makes sports cars and it makes luxury sedans, but it is set to expand into new territory altogether at the Frankfurt Motor Show this coming September. That's where and when it will reveal the F-Pace, Jaguar's very first crossover, and the production version of the C-X17 concept pictured here. Developed with critical input from sister-company Land Rover, the Jaguar F-Pace is being billed as a "sports crossover," with a more on-road focus than the SUVs of its off-road counterpart. Expect a range of engines to draw principally off of the new Ingenium family of four-cylinder gasoline and diesel powerplants, capped by Jag's signature supercharged V6 – just like the new XE sedan with which it will share much of its underpinnings. We can always hope, though, for an even more potent SVR version to follow with the JLR's sensational 5.0-liter supercharged V8. The Frankfurt reveal will mark two years since the C-X17 concept was first presented at the same show in 2013. Its arrival, coupled to that of the aforementioned XE, promise to push Jaguar's global output up from around 80,000 units last year to more than 200,000 once both models hit their stride.