2005 Jaguar XJ Super V8 Quick Spin

There is one thing visitors to these pages can be sure they will never see, and that is any editor complaining of too much power. Despite that fact and after driving the 2005 Jaguar XJ Super V8 for a week and about 1,000 miles, we’re not sure why this car was created. The powertrain is just as amazing in the shorter and less expensive XJR, a model designed as much for the driver as the passengers. The Super V8’s interior accommodations are numerous and impressive, but ditto the Vanden Plas at a substantial savings. Sure, the supercharger is absent on the Vanden Plas, but the focus of that car is on rear-seat passengers and not top speed.

So, with the Vanden Plas and the XJR, Jaguar has limo-like spaciousness and superb performance addressed. Are chauffeurs crying for more power? Maybe the pleas are coming from the chauffeured? We’re thinking not. The purpose of the XJ Super V8 remains a mystery to us, but the same can be said of 400- to 500-horsepower competitors from Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Maybe there’s a speed limit-less superhighway somewhere, accessible only by long-wheelbase luxury cars with a driver and comfortable rear seat passengers. Mystery solved.

Until that’s confirmed over the spreading of Grey Poupon along a country road, we’ll assume that boardroom meetings are really about 0-60 mph limo times, and that the rumor about NASCAR’s Kasey Kahne looking to moonlight as Bill France’s personal driver must be true. Or, as one editor suggested, maybe the biggest and most powerful cars, like the 2005 Jaguar XJ Super V8, are the best medicine for sufferers of the Napoleon complex.