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The open road... this is truly where any Jaguar looks its best, at speed, in action, in its natural element. Sure, it's nice to see a beautiful Jaguar on a lawn, it's nice to admire its sensual curves, beautiful lines , its stance even but they don't mean much standing still. Put it on the open road in it's natural environment and it comes alive .

Day three was Rally Day for participants in the 2005 JCC, about 100 miles of fun in the rural roads of northern Georgia and the foothills of the Appalachians.

The day started early, with cars being called in front of the winery before 8am for a drivers meeting . Early starts have their advantages with the warm early morning light enhancing the beauty of the cars ...

The Challenge Championship rally was a time / speed / distance rally where you need to maintain a precise average speed throughout the route as you come across un announced check points. This places an additional burden on the navigator who must not only read the road instructions but figure out time and speed calculations. Personally, I find it absolutely painful to have to drive down a nice country road at a slow speed so my resolve to stick to the rules of the game fell apart after just a few miles... again. Not even the incentive of competing for the free set of Pirelli tires offered to the best overall Concours / Rally / Slalom participant was enough.

The roads chosen by the North Georgia Club crew were fantastic; some were narrow and curvy and hilly, a true Jaguar driver's delight. Also, unlike Phoenix in 2003 and Franklin in 2001 no last minute road closures issues this time around so all stages could be run and scored.

Those who didn't want to compete were given the option of following a tour route at their own pace with both groups ending up at the Wolf Mountain winery for lunch . If the roads leading to the winery were nice, the winery and the lunch were even better! Built near the top of a hill, the main stone and wood building with large terrace offered great views of the rolling hills and the quality of the food was simply incredible!

Practice makes perfect in rally and the team of Gary and Sue Hagopian finished first in their 1962 E-type.

Back at the Chateau, preparations were underway for the reception at the Winery, an event made very special by Jaguar's recent decision to ship a prototype of the new 2007 XK Coupe from the UK and show it for the first time in North America. This was no small undertaking as the new XK (note they no longer call it XK8) was just unveiled at the Frankfurt auto show a few weeks early and had never been seen in North America. Schedule was tight as the car was to be sent to Detroit on Sunday for a media presentation and then flown back to England. Early in the evening, it sat under wrap in front of the winery waiting to be unveiled to hundreds of Jaguar enthusiasts... In attendance were Jaguar Vice President of Marketing Tom Scarpello and Jaguar chief of Design Ian Callum himself sent by Jaguar to address club members at the award banquet on Saturday.

While many of us had seen the pictures of the new XK, it was a treat to see it in the flesh... and it's drop dead gorgeous! While radically different in construction from the current XK thanks to its all aluminum body shell there is a family resemblance although the overall appearance is more aggressive. Other significant departures from the current model are the interior and hatchback. The drivetrain (4.2 litre V8 and ZF 6 speed) is similar although the transmission is now controlled by padleshift in manual mode instead of Jaguar's traditional J-Gate. See the Image gallery in the side bar or visit the special new XK section on Jag-Lovers.org.