Jaguar XKR-S GT vs Aston Martin V12 Vantage S

The thing about cars like the new £135,000, 186 mph Jaguar XKR-S GT and Aston Martin’s latest and greatest V12 Vantage S  (£138,000, 205 mph) is that nobody, anywhere, could ever possibly say that they need to own either of them. The world around such cars would carry on rotating entirely unaffected were they, for some inexplicable reason,
to be wiped from Jaguar’s and Aston Martin’s price lists overnight. And yet when it comes to wanting cars such as these, the pull they have on us enthusiasts is about as strong and passionate as it gets. They are both achingly desirable machines in their own right, for subtly different reasons. The Jaguar is a halo car if ever there was one. Fewer than 60 XKR-S GTs will be made, ever, and that’s why it can get away with being so extreme in its outlook and design. The Aston, on the other hand, has been accused by some of going soft in its middle age, partly because it now comes with the sole option of a paddle-shift gearbox and partly because it replaces one of the purest sports cars Aston has ever produced in the form of the original V12 Vantage. Either way, the V12 Vantage S remains one of the most appealing methods of not defaulting to a Porsche 911 Turbo if you have this much money to spend on an everyday supercar. Its V12 engine remains resolutely atmospheric in the way it ingests air into each of its cylinders, and while its new seven-speed ‘Sportshift III’ automated manual gearbox does indeed come with paddles, and paddles only, Aston Martin claims it can change gear faster and more efficiently than any human ever could with three pedals and a gear lever to stir around.

The Jaguar is a somewhat different proposition. Despite costing almost exactly the same as the Aston and boasting only a touch less power from its supercharged 5.0-litre V8 (it has 542 bhp versus the Vantage’s 565 bhp), it is, on the face of it, much more of a hardcore track-day kind of car – the sort of machine whose compromised refinement you put up with on the way to a circuit in return for the joy it provides once you get there. But in reality, and in spite of its huge wheels and multitude of spoilers and winglets, it’s actually nothing of the sort. The Jaguar, as it turns out, is every bit as usable as the Aston. Well, almost. Admittedly its rear seats have been replaced by a roll cage and the four-point harness does little to aid its everyday civility (it’s a pain in the neck, literally, for much of the time on the road, although it does clamp you nicely in place on the track). But if you can look

beyond these two lone elements for a moment, the XKR-S GT is actually a very decent road car. Its suspension may be stiffer than that of the standard XKR-S, but it still rides with a soothing, Jaguar-like precision and glides rather than thumps. Its steering also retains that lovely f luidity that’s at the centre of all cars sporting the leaping cat badge nowadays, even ones unleashed into the world by Jaguar’s Engineered To Order (ETO) department, set up recently to create a limited number of cars within each model range to cater for the most committed enthusiasts. So although they may appear to be aimed at rather different kinds of customers visually, in reality the XKR-S GT and the V12 Vantage S will appeal to a similar audience. Namely keen, wealthy drivers who might well do the odd track day, who want a car that’s as British as roast beef but which is usable on the public road.

A toy,  in other words,  that is unlike most other people’s toys. And in their own individual ways, both cars get close to hitting the bullseye. But before we go any further with the subjective impressions, some statistics. The Jaguar has slightly less power than the Aston, as intimated, but because it’s supercharged it also generates a decent chunk more torque – 502 lb ft at 3500 rpm versus the Aston’s 457 lb ft, which appears at a much higher 5750 rpm. This alone makes a notable difference to the way each car delivers its performance, on both road and track. The Aston is the lighter of the two by a significant 98kg (1615kg to 1713kg), which goes a good way towards offsetting its torque deficit. The Jaguar’s automatic gearbox has eight forward ratios to the seven of the Aston’s automated manual, with the XKR-S GT’s ratios being that little bit more closely stacked in the midrange, where it matters most. Both, too, come with standard-issue carbon-ceramic brakes, proving just how committed to the cause of hard driving their makers believe their owners to be. Fact is, you don’t need carbon-ceramic brake discs on a car that will spend all of its time on the public road, but at track days they are virtually a must on cars that are as quick as this and which weigh as much as these two do. 

So good on Aston Martin and Jaguar for providing their customers with such technology, we say, especially since in both cases there’s no particular trade-off to bear in pedal feel –traditionally the bane of carbon ceramic discs – out in the real world. Where they differ from one another most obviously is inside. The Jag has the whiff of a stripped-out club racer,  with kidney-crunching bucket seats,  that rear roll  cage and those big, red seatbelts. It feels a touch aftermarket beside the beautifully appointed and far classier Aston, to be honest. And when you fire them up, the apparent differences between them are magnified. Both explode into life with a wild but unavoidable burst of revs. The Jaguar will wake the whole street in the process, while in the Aston only those snoozing within 50 yards will have their sleep disturbed. How the XKR-S GT gets past the noise police I have no idea. It’s not just the sheer volume but also the depth of noise that is so fantastic – or embarrassing, depending on the mood you’re in and where and at what time you happen to be driving it. 

Along the average busy high street, the Jag is almost a brown paper bag kind of car. It’s so loud and so extrovert in its appearance that you almost want to climb out and tell people it’s not yours. But out on the open road, with no one else around, and with maybe the odd cliff face off which the outrageous exhaust note can ricochet, it sounds absolutely magnificent and at least as appealing as any Ferrari (except perhaps for the F12, which is a complete freak). Having said that, the Aston makes a pretty delicious kind of noise itself, particularly when the throttle is  introduced to the berries, as Nigel Mansell once put it, and there is more than 4000rpm showing. The difference, though, is that in the Aston you can calm it right down by cutting back the revs and reducing your throttle inputs. You can’t do that in the Jaguar; this XK is either loud or deafening, almost irrespective of what you do with its throttle. There are also, unsurprisingly, key differences in the way they go down the road. The Jaguar feels beefier and crisper in its responses, be that via the steering, brakes, throttle or suspension. Yet on the road it also rides far better than the Aston. The XKR-S GT f lows across most roads, even quite badly surfaced ones, much like any other Jaguar, with a deep-rooted sense of poise, precision and refinement. The Aston, by comparison, has a ride that’s borderline acceptable for comfort, feeling grainy on good surfaces and plain hard on others. There’s also more road noise generally in the Aston, despite it wearing smaller rear wheels and tyres (295/30 ZR19s to the Jaguar’s 305/30 ZR20s). But the Aston also feels quite a bit smaller physically and a fair bit more agile dynamically than the XK does on the road. Because it’s that much narrower and shorter, you feel like you can thread it through gaps into which the XK simply won’t fit. Roads feel wider in the Aston as a result, which means you can use more of them when you’re going for it. In a straight line, it’s genuinely hard to tell  which is quicker; both feel pretty rabid, to be honest. Both have far more poke than is strictly necessary for use on the public road, but of the two it’s the Jag that feels most energetic, and that’s because it has that extra hit of torque with which to light up the rear tires. Which is something it will do instantly and in any of the first four gears if you reach for the button that switches the traction control off. With it on, the yellow warning light in the dashboard flashes more often in the XK than it does in the Aston, especially on wet roads. But neither car has any particularly nasty tricks up its sleeve, if and when they let go. Like all powerful but well behaved front-engined, rear-drive cars, they both understeer a touch to begi n wit h (t he Aston l ess so on a circuit like Castle Combe, to which we alighted on day two) and then go neutral, pushing towards oversteer if you’re enthusiastic with the throttle towards the exit of a corner. On the track, the Aston really does come alive. It feels all 98kg lighter than the Jaguar in the way it turns in to, stops for and accelerates out of corners, doing so with a little bit more fizz. Its gearbox also works better than the Jaguar’s when you work the car hard, delivering downshifts faster and more precisely than the Jag’s despite boasting one less ratio. And on the straights it feels every bit as potent as the Jaguar, because on a track you’re invariably revving the V12 hard. You’re always up at 5000rpm or beyond, which means the Aston’s torque disadvantage doesn’t matter. Indeed, the fact that the Vantage has 565 bhp at 6750 rpm

means it is, ultimately, always that little bit quicker than the Jaguar in a straight line. And under brakes, and while turning in, and at the exit of each corner – hence the reason why it managed to lap the Castle Combe circuit a full 3.5sec faster than the XKR-S GT. That’s a pretty big margin by any standards, but subjectively the Aston feels that much quicker when you really go for it.

When you’re not, though, it’s the Jaguar, somewhat ironically, that’s arguably the nicer car to drive. Lose the silly seatbelts and it would be a lovely road car to climb into and use every day. The Aston feels more special, perhaps, but its ride and extra road noise would gradually wear you down if you had to put up with them day in, day out. Either way, whichever one you ended up with to use as a toy, you’d be very, very happy with. These are two great cars and two reasons why the British sports car industry can be proud of itself in 2014. On some days, and on certain types of journey, the Aston would get the nod. On others, the Jaguar. And on all days you’d be delighted to be in either. It really would depend on what sort of mood you were in at the time. They’re that close, but also that different from one another, all at the same time.

Source : Autocar Magazine UK

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