Fastest Jaguar ever at Goodwood

Last year Jaguar took the XFR Prototype to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and broke its own speed records as the car hit an astonishing 225.675mph. The car only differs from the production XFR by way of an uprated exhaust, a modified air intake and a remapped engine management chip. The 5.0-litre supercharged V8 engine was mechanically unchanged, as was the gearbox.

And now you can see the prototype for yourself as it makes a rare appearance at the Goodwood Festival of speed this coming weekend (Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th July), driven by Paul Gentilozzi, the man who piloted it to its epic top speed in Utah.

Alongside it will be another one-off - the XKR 'Goodwood Special', which is best explained by Mike O'Driscoll, Jaguar's MD, who says it has "been developed as a one-off to explore the harder side of the XKR's character and allow our engineering team to explore some performance boundaries... without all the practical and legal requirements of driving on the road getting in the way."

There are 'performance enhancements', says Jaguar, but we're not told exactly what. We do know the exhaust is 'louder' and that it rides on lower springs attached to 21-inch wheels. There's also a distinctive lime green paintjob, as you can see. Goodwood 2009 will also see the return of the 1957 Le Mans winning long-nose D-Type Jag to the hillclimb, as well as the Jaguar C-Type and the one-off, 502bhp XJ13.

Mark Nichol