Meet the TWR Supercat With Designers Magnus Walker and Khyzyl Saleem

Just as Mark Twain once famously quipped, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” the same can be said for the internal-combustion engine, especially after last night’s global public debut of the TWR Supercat. Fit with a 660 hp, 5.6-liter supercharged V-12 mated to a six-speed manual transmission, the model is the antithesis of what mainstream OEMs have been focusing on, and instead harkens back to the motorsport monsters from the latter part of last century.

From the late 1970s through the ’90s, Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) helped certain automakers bolster the performance of their race cars and campaigned them. Most notable of these was Jaguar, as the marque and TWR took first overall at the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans with the XJR-9. Now, Tom’s son Fergus has revived TWR after more than two decades of dormancy, doing so with the help of racer and investor John Kane, renowned car collector and modifier Magnus Walker, and automotive designer Khyzyl Saleem.

The first release from the redux performance specialist, the Supercat is described in TWR’s official announcement as a “Super-GT underpinned by the legendary Jaguar XJS.” As for the production run, it will be limited to 88 examples, each with a starting price of $250,000. On the day of the reveal, Robb Report was given more backstory from both Walker and Saleem regarding their involvement with this modern muscle-car flex, and why the idea of its development provided such a powerful draw.

What was your knowledge of TWR prior to getting involved with this project?

Magnus Walker: Being British and being a Jag owner and fan, I was aware of TWR—from the XJS of Bathurst, the touring car of course, and the outright Le Mans victory with Jag in ’88. And I had seen a few XJSs from TWR kits over the years. That was pretty much what I knew.

How did you get involved with the TWR Supercat?

Walker: I’ve owned all three generations of the E-Type, I’ve owned XJ6s, and back when Ian Callum was designing with Jag—circa 2018, 2019—I spent some time with him and did a Jag drive for the 50th anniversary of the XJ6 . . . driving all eight generations of the XJ. At the time, Jaguar was launching a hot-rod car based on Ian Callum’s XJC coupe that they had made for Nicko McBrain, the drummer of Iron Maiden. I was talking to Ian and Jaguar Heritage, ironically, about doing my own XJS hot-rod outlaw car. They liked the idea, but Ian then left Jag and the project never went anywhere. Fast-forward to 2022, I got a call asking if I would be interested in collaborating on this project, to which I responded, “You must be a mind reader, I’ve kind of wanted to do this project for the past three to four years.”

That’s how I got involved, and I brought Khyzyl in as head designer. I had met Khyzyl before, I was familiar with his work and liked what he did. He had come out to my Outlaw 10 exhibition at the Petersen two years ago, and I knew he was the guy to do the job. I became the design consultant on the project.

What was it about the Supercat that you found so compelling?

Walker: Truth be told, I liked the fact that it wasn’t a Porsche. That was one of the appeals. I’m known as a Porsche guy, but I do own a lot of non-Porsche cars.

Were there unexpected challenges, and if so, how did you overcome them?

Walker: I’m in a different time zone, we’re all throwing ideas in along the way, maybe there’s a compromise or two, maybe you fight for something you believe in, that you think will aesthetically work on the car, but it’s a collaborative process led by Khyzyl. Trying to please all the people all the time is not always the easiest thing. For me, I had never worked in that situation before. Everything I had done with my own cars I did my way, with what pleased me aesthetically. But there was a vision, and we were all on the same page of what the vision was.

Khyzyl, what drew you to this project?

Khyzyl Saleem: I’m a big motorsport fan, so I immediately knew what TWR stood for, and the XJS is a car that I hadn’t touched yet. I’ve done E-Types, but I had left the XJS alone because I wanted time to focus, to do it properly. I’d been waiting, and then this project came along . . . to bring [the car], not essentially to a new generation, but to re-energize what the XJS is, and tie that to what TWR stands for.

How did you approach the design process for the Supercat?

Saleem: The first design I pitched the team, they really loved. Then I worked with an ex-Mercedes F1 aero expert to basically do testing on the parts we designed, so there was a lot of back and forth, changing things like the front splitter. In my original design, [the front splitter] was a lot more curvaceous and stopped shorter as well, but the aero engineer pointed out that if you want that to function across the whole car, it has to be as long as you can make it. So it was trying to find the balance between looking good and performing good—this is the theme that flows throughout the entire car.

Take us through some of the key design elements.

Saleem: You’ll notice the almost-hourglass figure of the car, when you look from the top down, and that’s an homage to the ’70s and ’80s. And the original car had essentially a faux flying buttress, it didn’t go anywhere, but on this car, we’ve managed to engineer it so that the airflow is actually working with the car, as opposed to against it. The rear roof spoiler pushes air down through the back of the car and across as well. The channeled roof line flows from the original body line of the XJS into the back. [I was] building off Jaguar as design inspiration as well, the XJR-9, the XJ220, which is quite obvious from the rear diffuser.

Is there an element of the car that’s your favorite?

Saleem: The rear three-quarters. A lot of time was spent from that rear fender line, swooping into the rear spoiler, which then fades out. That, combined with the rear buttress of the car, is my favorite angle.

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What was your primary design inspiration for the Supercat?

Saleem: I love the almost brutalist style of the IMSA race cars . . . primarily, for me, IMSA and Trans-Am were a large inspiration. For example, Bob Tullius’s Group 44 Jaguar XJS, with its big arches, the side-exit exhausts . . . the character of that car is what I wanted to portray in this, but make it work with the rest of the car and how it needs to perform.

What impresses you most about the model now that you’ve seen it?

Walker: It’s the proportion, the scale, the silhouette that’s most impressive. It’s a ground-up build of carbon body panels as opposed to a wide-body kit that’s attached to the car. They take everything off the donor XJS, its fully rebodied. It’s like a boxer in a Savile Row suite, a British bulldog. It stands out in a sea of hyper-restomod cars—a statement piece that ticks all the boxes for the senses.

Will you be involved in more projects like this down the road?

Walker: Yes, this is a project I’ve enjoyed, and I have a Pininfarina project that’s getting ready to be shown to the world. This was a great example of me enjoying the creative process with a team that elevated where I’m at in a way, from a creative point of view—creating something a little out of my norm but something that I’m familiar with, and working in a team environment. Hopefully this will open the door to other collaborations.

Click here for more photos of the TWR Supercat.