1983 Jaguar XJR-5 Group 44 Racing Car

Won US Road Atlanta 500 km Race in May 1985

The Jaguar Marque 1982 Fall Testing The XJR5

The return of Jaguar to long-distance sports car racing was begun in the USA. In 1974 and 1975, Bob Tullius of the Group 44 team had successfully run an E-type in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) production car races, with sponsorship from the then British Leyland Motor Inc, the American Jaguar importers which eventually became Jaguar Cars Inc. At Atlanta in 1975, Tullius clinched the national Group B championship.

However, the E-type was now out of production, and Tullius switched to the new XJ-S which won him the 1977 and 1978 SCCA Trans-Am championships. While still racing the XJ-S in 1981, Tullius now hatched a plan to develop a mid-engined endurance racer round the proven Jaguar V12 engine, for the IMSA Camel GTP series. The car was designed by Lee Dykstra, previously associated with Ford racing.

In its debut race at Elkhart Lake on 22 August 1982, the new car, driven by Bob Tullius and Bill Adam, came third completing 123 laps but was initially plagued by minor technical problems or accidents.

The Jaguar Marque magazine published in Fall 1982 included an article written by Editor, Harvey Turner on ‘TESTING THE XJR5’.

The first win for Tullius and co-driver Adam came at Road Atlanta, Georgia on 10 April 1983 with the XJR-5 driven by Tullius and Adam finishing only 18 seconds ahead of Whittington and Donaldson in a March 83G-Chevrolet.

This season was to prove the best for the Group 44 car in American racing with a further win for Tullius and Adam in this car at Lime Rock in May.

Le Mans 1984 and 1985

Bob Tullius had already set his sights on a larger target:  the world championship for sports car endurance racing, or to be more precise, the Le Mans 24-hour race.  Bearing in mind Jaguar’s past record at Le Mans, with five wins from 1951 to 1957, there was a great deal of emotion attached to a return to this race, especially in 1984, the year that Jaguar achieved independence from the BL company.  Group 44 entered two XJR-5s for the race, with neither finishing, one crashing out on lap 212 after 16 hours and the other retiring with gearbox problems  on lap 291 after 21 hours which would have equated to finishing in fifteenth place.  Although the Le Mans entry arguably compromised Group 44’s chances to win the American championship in 1984, Group 44 returned to Le Mans in 1985 with one of the two Group 44 XJR-5s finishing in thirteenth place, the first time that a Jaguar had finished at Le Mans since 1963.  The drivers were Tullius himself, together with Chip Robinson and Claude Ballot-Léna.  If not successful, Group 44 had paved the way for Jaguar’s win with the TWR XJR-9 in 1988.

Our XJR-5 – chassis #009 competed successfully throughout the 1984 and 1985 seasons in the US, only failing to finish once at the Daytona 24 hours in February, gaining: five 3rd places, two 2nd places and winning the Road Atlanta 500 km race in April 1985.

1983 Jaguar XJR-5 Chassis 009 – Race History

DateLocation & RaceDriversResult
8 April 1984Road Atlanta, Georgia
500km
Brian Redman
Pat Bedard
3rd
20 May 1984Charlotte, North Carolina 
500 km
Brian Redman
Pat Bedard

3rd

8 July 1984Watkins Glen, New York
6 hours
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
3rd
3 February 1985Daytona, Florida
24 hours
Claude Ballot-Léna
Jim Adams
Chip Robinson
DNF – engine failure
Classified 55th
24 February 1985Miami, Florida
3 hours
Hurley Haywood
Chip Robinson
4th
14 April 1985Road Atlanta, Georgia
500 km
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
1st
28 April 1985Riverside, California
600 km
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
37th
5 May 1985Lugana Seca, California
300 km
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
3rd
19 May 1985Charlotte, North Carolina
500 km
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
2nd
27 May 1985Lime Rock, Connecticut
2 hours
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
2nd
9 June 1985Mid-Ohio
500 km
Hurley Haywood
Chip Robinson
3rd
7 July 1985Watkins Glen, New York
3 hours
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
4th
29 July 1985Portland, Oregan
300 km
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
4th
4 August 1985Sears Point, Sonoma, California
300 km
Brian Redman
Hurley Haywood
14th

Race results from Group 44 Records and www.RacingSportsCars.com

Chassis Number: XJR-5/009

Owner: The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust

Inventory Number: 081/J.38