Jaguar XJR-15 for sale

An extremely rare Jaguar XJR-15 is currently for sale in Australia.

Offered by the Gosford Car Museum, the car is one of just 53 produced and you'll need a cool A$1,050,000 to transfer it to your garage.

Only four XJR-15s reside in the southern hemisphere, two each in Sydney and Melbourne, with this example, chassis 018, fully restored by Mike Roddy Motors in Moorabbin, Victoria.

It's travelled a mere 710km with only a handful of those completed since the restoration.

In concept the XJR-15 was a road-going version of the Le Mans-winning Jaguar XJR-9. It was the first road car to be built completely out of carbon fibre, though its competition focus meant it definitely put the racer in road-racer.

Power came from a 6.0-litre V12 producing 336kW/570Nm. That might not seem much by today's standards, but the XJR-15 weighed just 1050kg, of which almost a third was engine.

Performance was vivid, with 0-60mph (0-97km/h) claimed to take just 3.9sec and a top speed of 307km/h. Unfortunately, raising the ride height to make it suitable for the road limited the effectiveness of the aerodynamics and led to very lively handling at the limit.

A one-make race series was devised to showcase the car, the Jaguar Intercontinental Challenge, with a $1million prize for the winner.

It supported three Formula 1 races during the 1991 season (Monaco, Silverstone and Spa) and featured driving talent like David Brabham, Jim Richards, eventual winner Armin Hahne and Tiff Needell, who can be seen demonstrating the car below.

The car was succeeded by the Jaguar XJ220 and its designer, Peter Stevens, went on to design another V12-engined carbon fibre supercar, the McLaren F1.