Jaguar is preparing to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the XJ220 next year, a car that was briefly the fastest in the world with a top speed of 217 mph. Now, to honor the anniversary and to help keep these high-speed collectibles on the road, parts supplier Don Law is partnering with Bridgestone to develop new tires for the XJ220. The partners aim to have the new, modern tires available for the anniversary in 2017.
 Originally, the automaker had announced it would build 220?the projected top speed in mph?up to 350 units, the actual top speed in kilometers per hour. By the time production stopped in 1994, Jaguar had built 275 XJ220s, all of which have now become valuable collectibles. Their owners know they need to turn to Don Law Racing in the U.K. to keep them on the road; Don Law is an expert Jaguar shop, essentially the world headquarters for XJ220 replacement parts. Bridgestone, meanwhile, was the original supplier of tires for the project. A market of 275 cars may be small, but this is an important tire to develop for an important car, since tires that would work on the XJ220 went out of production years ago. Bridgestone is working with the original engineers, original test driver, and pre-production chassis 004 to develop the new 255/45ZR-17 front and 345/35ZR-18 rear tires.
The original concept, shown in 1988, was an all-wheel-drive car with a naturally aspirated V-12. Jaguar looked at the Porsche 959 and Ferrari F40 and, working in partnership with Tom Walk...