Yahoo Autos How Bridgestone Extended the Jaguar XJ220's Life by Another 25 Years
Jaguar stopped building XJ220s after #271 rolled off the line in 1994. Many moons later, they also sold everything related to the car to Don Law Racing, including all the tooling, blueprints and spares they had. Since then, the Law family has developed the supercar much further than Jaguar could, but one obstacle they couldn't get past on their own was the issue of the tires. Using whatever was left of the last batch Bridgestone made in the early nineties, all the XJ220s out there have been running on what was essentially illegal rubber in recent years due to their age.
Then came a chat at Goodwood about new tires, with Bridgestone jumping on the train not long after. The XJ220 project even get the original development team back together, including Andy Wallace, Alastair McQueen, John Nielsen and engineer Shinichi Watanabe, with chief test driver Andrea Dauri and of course the Laws, Don and Justin.
With no tires on the market that would physically fit this rare supercar, the Japanese tire company didn't just re-make the old version, but went on to develop a brand new one, using modern technologies and the latest materials while keeping the thread pattern's look as close to the original as possible. The task was challenging because all the molds have been scrapped, so all they had in the archives were old papers and drawings. In the end, Bridgestone made those extra wide and much tougher tires on their motorsport machinery, testing the prototypes on the very same car they used for the development work back in 1991.
#004 is one of the five hand-built prototypes, and the original Bridgestone car. Don Law Racing purchased it after it went through hell and back, racing all through the nineties. They did a full restoration to original spec, using the factory settings to make sure the tires would work on every XJ220. This silver car did its initial testing in Texas in May, 1991, after which Bridgestone took three other XJ220s to the Nürburgring for two weeks of flat out driving. The three cars–two red and one blue–all had 547 horsepower twin-turbo V6s on tap, an engine which made the record-runner do its lap half a minute faster than any road car at the time.
Back in the day at Nardo, the XJ220 also did 217mph with its catalytic converters removed, with Martin Brundle behind the wheel. Thanks to Bridgestone and the work of the "original band," that record doesn't have to stand forever now:
You Might Also Like
