The architects of Jaguar’s finest hour: TWR’s immortal drivers

A driver slides into the cockpit of a Silk Cut Jaguar, gloved fingers finding the ribbed leather of the steering wheel. The naturally aspirated V12 engine comes alive with a sound that belongs to no other car, a howl of pure metallic rage. This was the golden age of endurance racing, and only a handful of pilots possessed the nerve and skill to tame these phenomenal machines.

From an original roster of forty drivers who wore the purple and white across the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Goodwood has distilled the essence of TWR Jaguar’s triumph into a ranking of the ten greatest, celebrating the prototypes resplendent in that legendary Silk Cut livery that dominated throughout the Group C era. Teo Fabi claimed the 1991 Drivers’ Championship in the XJR-14, the team’s final World Sportscar Championship challenger, a machine so potent that it redefined what was possible on the circuit.

The story began with the XJR-6, which raced for the first time in 1985 with drivers including Martin Brundle, Mike Thackwell and Jean Louis Schlesser, though the truly luminous period arrived later. Eddie Cheever’s 31 per cent win to starts ratio remains the most prodigious of any TWR Jaguar driver, a statistic that whispers of pure racecraft and an almost preternatural understanding of machine and moment.

Jaguar finally reached the top of the podium at Le Mans with the 7.0 litre XJR-9LM, defeating a fierce Porsche challenge, a victory that defined an era. At the 84th Members’ Meeting in April 2027, Goodwood will celebrate the glory days of TWR with a host of Group C and IMSA era Jaguar XJRs, along with the cars that competed against them. The roar of those V12 engines will echo once more across the circuit, carrying with it the ghosts of the greatest drivers who ever commanded them.

Imagery courtesy of Goodwood Road and Racing (@goodwoodrrc).