1993 Jaguar XJ220 for sale in Australia

In 1990, Jaguar built a car that hit 299km/h. That car was the Jaguar XJ220.

It then went on to hit 343km/h in 1991. One year later, Jaguar was building production models for the buying public.

Some of those even went to Australia, and were very hard to come by. This is one of those cars.

Number 120 of 275 is this Monza Red XJ220 with a cream, or ‘Sand’ leather interior, and it’s currently for sale.

At $1,000,000, it’s out of reach for most mere mortals, but with only 905km showing on the odometer, it’s only going to get more expensive.

Its 3.5-litre twin turbo V6 is still yet to be worn in enough to access the full potential of 405kW and 644Nm,which allowed a 0-97km/h (or 0-60mph) sprint of less than four seconds.

But the top speed of the XJ220 was the real kicker, with the removal of its catalytic converter and rev-limiter removed, it clocked 217mph, or 349km/h.

The speed was achieved by CAR magazine in the UK, and this speed was reportedly accepted by the Guinness Book of World Records until the McLaren F1 came along to cut the 220’s grass.

“It looked faster, if anything on the road can possibly look faster than 217 miles an hour,” Gavin Green wrote.

“The JaguarSport guys must have been disappointed – they all really wanted to see 220… Yet they now knew… that they were about to launch the fastest production car to hit the road.”

This example has likely not seen such high speeds, and is looking quite tidy with everything original and intact.

Right now, it’s sitting in Lorbek’s showroom in Port Melbourne, waiting for its next millionaire owner.