Gadgetory

well here it is the fastest nastiest snarling Jaguar makes it's the 2012 jag xkr-s let's go take a very speedy drive and check the tech now spotting an xkr-s is easy one it's the best-looking Jaguar in over a decade I'm normally not a big fan of taking cars designed for grown-ups and sticking body kits on them but somehow this one works if you miss all of that just come back here and notice the carbon fiber wing first thing you got to get past is the weird sort of schizophrenia inside this cabin it's not entirely technical like a brawny track car nor is it luxurious like a Jaguar should be it's a weird hodgepodge and god I hate 2-tone seats especially when they're faux racing seats that's just a weird mixed metaphor okay let's go to the main event this head units is all stock here and I'm just about ready to declare it the worst interface in any car north of $30,000 a few examples it's got needless animation why do things fly in and out that adds nothing except delay to the experience secondly speaking of delay if you go and turn let's say the volume knob over here that'll adjust the volume and then a day later this goofy animation shows up on top of what you're already doing and generally speaking they don't use enough real estate too much is wasted on kind of letterbox bars here and there and those menus flying in and out your audio sources are am/fm no HD radio satellite radio or CD slot here bluetooth hands-free calling of standard bluetooth streaming is not available that's kind of a key leave out whatever you're listening to comes out of a one choice only 525 watt Bowers & Wilkins audio system this is the drive selector that they use on Jags these days it's this rotating knob here's a button here for their competitive or dynamic modes you can get yourself in trouble and kill yourself the dynamic mode does the usual stuff it sharpens throttle response raises shift points backs off stability control a whole bunch and really let's that blown engine speak to the street more clearly arian beats the heart of a predator this is the five liter supercharged direct-injected v8 that pushes this thing in crazy numbers of horsepower and torque 550 horse 502 foot-pounds of torque it's this fully two-ton coupe up to 60 in about 4.2 seconds while delivering 15 22 mpg is good enough to avoid a gas guzzler tax this Jags AJ 133 motor gets its extra power from a revised exhaust system and attended fuel mapping changes along with the use of Eaton's latest twin vortex supercharger it's the same one used in the corvette zr1 and cadillac cts-v both of which left us stuck to the seat back now all the tackiness of this cabin and hatefulness of that head unit fades away very quickly in just a few steps push the start button turn that knob to s for sport mode hit the dynamic driving mode right there and just for kicks let's take off the traction control shall we all right like curry on a Friday night and strawberry blondes overwhelming power seems to be a very British thing when they do a high-performance car it's so much power you don't even think about summoning it it's just sort of always there it's an interesting comparison to the 2012 Carrera s we have it right now which has tremendous power and is 0 to 60 and about the same time but the power comes on in a more requested way whereas here it never fades away that car's got a 3.8 liter naturally aspirated engine this one's got a 5 liter blown motor both cars get to 60 in about 4 seconds and they both cost around the same in very rough numbers so what's the big difference wait this Jags got around 700 pounds more on the hook than the little portion however this jag is imminently livable in its own way first of all it's got an automatic transmission six feet as I mentioned compared to a lot of cars in this class have a 7-speed DCT for example both are really good at high performance the DCT is better on the track because neither you go there a lot but this 6-speed automatic when it's done right like this is a better everyday transmission to live with it's happier around town it's happier when you're driving to work and poking along or just doing more normal driving it doesn't make any weird clunks or bonks when it's down around low speed DC tees are still kind of rough in that way and I think it's a huge testimony to the engineering on this motor as well as what he has done on this new generation TV S blower and that there is so immediate a power delivery of what appears to be the fat spot of the torque curve all the time it all goes to that whole idea of effortless overwhelming power that's the Sigma Chi again this car okay twice into Jiang xkr-s is real easy for ting one is not this is $132,000 car with precious few options at least in terms of tech you can replace this engine cover with one made of carbon fiber for two thousand dollars and be a real tool or you can spend $4,000 to get what they call the bright kit which puts back all the chrome they took off to make it look like this you