Jaguar will commemorate the 20th anniversary of its historic 1988 Le Mans win by returning the race winning Silk Cut Jaguar XJR-9LM which will lead a special parade lap ahead of this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours Race on Saturday, June 14. The winning car – owned today by the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust in Coventry – will be driven by Jan Lammers.
Jan, along with co-drivers Andy Wallace and Johnny Dumfries, drove the XJR-9LM to victory from sixth place on the grid in the 56th Le Mans 24 Hours.
An evolution of the XJR-9, the XJR-9LM was designed by Tony Southgate and built by Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) specifically for the 24 Hours of Le Mans where the requirement for high straight line speeds on the Mulsanne straight necessitated a low-drag aerodynamic package.
Jaguar went to Le Mans with an entry of five XJR-9 cars, all powered by the Jaguar V12 engine producing 750bhp from a capacity of 7.0 litres, which was based on the 5.3 litre V12 from the XJS. At the end of the race three cars were still running finishing first, fourth and sixteenth.
The winning Jaguar completed 394 laps and covered a distance of 5332km (3313 miles), in comparison the winning D-type of 1957 covered a distance of 4397km (2732 miles).
Jaguar also won the world championship in 1988 with wins in six out of eleven Group C races.
