Midweek Motoring with Gavin D’Souza
What we have before us, being unveiled at this week’s Geneva Motor Show is a pair of quintessentially British Grand Touring Sports Coupes.
They are both long-bonneted, front-engined, rear-driven GTs with posh badges, whose character is a blend of top-drawer luxury and pub-brawling hooliganism, should you be so inclined.
They both sound magnificent on the move, both are breathtaking to behold and despite their tarmac-melting credentials, either could take you from one end of the country to the other in spectacular comfort.
They were even originally designed by the same man.
So they might as well be the same car, but for a few very good reasons, they are not.
We’re talking about the latest two-plus-two-seat offerings from erstwhile cousins, Aston Martin and Jaguar – the Virage and the XKR-S.
Let’s be clear from the start, neither of these is strictly a ‘new’ car, but rather an faster, harder version of existing fare; but each of them is positioned quite differently by its maker.
Aston Martin has been fielding a lot of flak lately, mostly from angry enthusiasts who could never actually afford its cars, on account of a few fumbles.
First, there was the attempted revival of the Lagonda luxury brand which was rather embarrassingly presented in the form of a fat, ungainly crossover thing.
This was followed by the super-limited, world-beating super GT car, the One-77, which was (is) brilliant, except its development has been excruciatingly slow and secretive, and it is so rare and valuable that it struggles to establish a real connection with the brand loyal.
Then came the Cygnet which, despite being an excellent remedy for Aston’s mounting CO2 woes on paper, came across as a lazy badge-engineering job with, of all things, a Toyota micro-car.
And now there’s a good chance they will weather a veritable flak storm, thanks to the new Virage.
Aston says the car was born out of consumer demand to fill the gap between the Grand Touring DB9 and the very slightly more serious Grand Touring DBS.
Unfortunately, while that gap is a chasm in terms of price, it’s merely a hair’s width in terms of performance, so as you would imagine, the changes made to create the Virage are rather subtle.
The car (which also comes in Volante convertible guise) is a DB9 with the wider track and advanced suspension, albeit tuned for comfort, from the DBS.
It gets carbon brakes and an updated auto transmission; there’s no manual option.
The 365kW power output from the tried-and-tested 6.0-litre V12 is precisely mid way between that of the DB9 and the DBS, but its 570Nm torque output is shared with its more expensive brother.
There is much talk of ‘refinement’ and ‘evolution’ and lessons learned from the Rapide saloon (whose headlamps the Virage has cheekily nicked) and even a small peep about one very useful change – better satnav.
Jaguar, meanwhile, has been on somewhat of a roll, what with its swank new XJ saloon and developments in alternate propulsion.
The company makes no bones about the fact its new XKR-S is simply the hottest, maddest version yet of the already-quite-mad XKR; so exactly what the badge says, then.
The press release, about a third the length of the Aston’s, in a nutshell reads: “The E-Type – the greatest car we’ve ever built – turns 50 this year, so we thought we’d celebrate by giving you our most powerful XK yet.”
Power from the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 is up from 375kW to 398kW and torque from 625Nm to 679Nm.
It also gets bigger brakes, the latest version of Jag’s adaptive suspension with a 10mm drop in ride height and a rather childish body kit, which hopefully can be deleted at the showroom.
It will sit in the range with a slightly higher price tag (about 13% more than the regular XKR), but that’s about it.
There’s no spiel about opening up a new market niche, filling a desperate surge in demand or catering to a new breed of customer; it’s just more Jag for more money, end of story.
Dare I say, given the timing, that the XK is celebrating its emergence from the shadow of big Aston Martin GTs in which it was once forced to sit under Ford ownership; the Jag would easily smash the massively more expensive Aston in a round of Top Trumps.
This is not to say I dislike the Virage; in fact I love it and I am sure anything with eyes and a pulse would too.
It is easily the best looking iteration of this car yet, and even pips the Jag on the sex appeal scales.
I’m even open to the idea of evolution rather than revolution, and if indeed it is not broken, it shouldn’t need fixing, but it’s silly to pretend the Virage is anything more than a facelift and mild mechanical update.
It’s a new variant, not a new model; just call it ‘New DB9’ and things will make a lot more sense.
Sincerely, an enthusiast who could never actually afford any of these cars.
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