The Jaguar XJR-11 was a sports-prototype racing car introduced for the 1989 World Sports Prototype Championship, while its sister car the XJR-10 was introduced to compete in IMSA series races.
Development
For the 1989 season, Tom Walkinshaw realised that the TWR produced V12 Jaguar sports prototypes were lacking competitiveness, especially in short sprint events. The small, light weight forced induction engines used by competitors such as Mercedes-Benz outperformed the big, naturally aspirated engines that Jaguar Sport had been using since the start of the programme.
Jaguar started development of a new engine in order to stay competitive. The Rover V64V 3.5 L V6 engine originally designed for the MG Metro 6R4 rally car proved to be an ideal engine for the new car, with its weight of just 143 kg and consistent performance. Jaguar developed two variants of the engine: the 3.0 L variant was intended for competition in the IMSA series and the 3.5 L variant was intended for competition in World sports car championship. Both variants were fitted with two Garett turbochargers and produced varied power outputs of 650 hp and 750 hp respectively depending on the level of boost.
Tony Southgate designed a new chassis for the car which was compact and the evolution of the carbon fibre monocoque of the previous XJR-8/XJR-9