The Globe and Mail

It's always dangerous to suggest that a car with a $107,000 price tag is a good value. But that's the truth about the 2010 Jaguar XKR coupe.

You could spend two or three times more money and not get a coupe with a design this sexy in a car with 510 supercharged horses under the hood, coming from a maker with such a rich heritage.

Don't scoff at the heritage piece. No one, absolutely no one, spends north of $100,000 on a car simply to buy transportation. That kind of money also buys the cachet that comes from a car company with a deep history of design and performance innovation.

Jaguar is one of those companies. Sure, Tata of India now owns Jag, but it seems to me that is a good thing, not a bad one. When Ford owned Jag, the goal was to turn Jaguar into a mass-market luxury brand. Yes, that seems like an oxymoron; the plan flopped, spectacularly.

Ford managed to make Jaguar's plants world-class, not to mention its vehicle quality, too. But Ford also tried to make Jaguar a high-volume BMW-fighter and that just never was going to work.

The new owners seem content to let Jaguar be a luxury car brand selling modest volumes of a small number of models. Now that makes sense.

It also makes sense to look at the XKR coupe with its blistering performance – if you want a heart-stopper of a car. Especially now, given that Jag turned chief designer Ian Callum and his crew loose on the exterior and the interior.

Before 2010, both were lacking richness and daring. But now, the shapely hood (hinged at the front, like the legendary E-Type) is set off nicely by faux air intakes carved into the front fender and the LED taillights in back; the XKR looks more complete than pre-2010 versions.

Inside, budget-brand buttons have been smothered in chrome and the old gear stick has been replaced by a gently rising rotary knob. We saw this first in the XF sedan and, it worked so well there, Jaguar has put the knob into the XK.

Then there is this little matter of horsepower. The 510-hp, supercharged 5.0-litre V-8 – shared with the XFR ($85,300) – is a dandy.

With this engine, all you need to do is tickle the throttle with your big toe and you're off. The supercharger spins up and, in a blink, the scenery is racing by. Unlike, say, a BMW M6 or a Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG, this XKR does not have an engine that needs to rev wildly to the far right of the tachometer. The power comes on in a more sedate manner.

For the record, up until 2009, Jaguar's 4.2-litre V-8 was the best you could get with the XK. The new supercharged 5.0-litre represents a 90-hp boost over the '09 model. That gets you 0-100 km/h in about 4.8 seconds, or so; top speed, 250 km/h.

The engine is tied to a six-speed automatic gearbox that can be manually operated through paddle shifters on the wheel. It works. The transmission offers near-instantaneous gear changes. And just like the XF, you select the gear mode (P-R-N-D) by spinning a chrome dial that rises out of the console slowly as you start the ignition sequence.

What Jag has tried to do here is deliver a high-zoot grand touring car, not a faux race car. That said, the active exhaust shouts out an epic soundtrack as you go about your work behind the wheel.

Note, too, that while the XKR and XFR share an engine, the XKR is not a two-door version of the sedan. Not at all. The XKR is lighter and crisper than an XFR. On the track, where I've had loads and loads of fun with this car, the turn-in is sharp and keen.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a car more agile and balanced, at least this side of half a million. The steering feel is superb, too; you can sense what the car is doing and what it wants to do through the steering wheel.

Like most modern cars, the natural inclination here is to understeer – to plow a bit in the corners – but that's nothing a bit of braking into the apex can't cure. Jag also allows you to turn off the anti-skid control, but be careful; the wheelbase is fairly short, so things can happen quickly.

Jaguar, then, has evolved the XK that we first saw for the 2007 model year. It was a pretty car then, but now with the subtle changes, the XK looks a tad dangerous. Most important, the aluminum-bodied XKR flat out flies.

You can spend more on a car with a similar pedigree, but I'm not sure you'd get more car.

jcato@globeandmail.com

2010 JAGUAR XKR

Type: High-performance luxury coupe

Price: $108,370

Engine: 5.0-litre V-8, supercharged

Horsepower/torque: 510 hp/461 lb-ft

Transmission: Six-speed automatic

Drive: Rear-wheel-drive

Fuel economy (litres/100 km): 18.9 city/8.6 highway; premium gas

Alternatives: BMW M6, Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG, Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo