Jaguar's E-type was so good that designing and developing a successor was always going to be difficult. The XK8, released in 1996, brought renewed credibility to Jaguar Cars. It looked like a Jaguar should - sleek, low with sensuous carves in all the right places. Three years later Jaguar announced the XKR, a supercharged and honed-and-tightened version of the XK8. Various special XKs were built during its long production life and it had a 'sister' car in the lovely Aston Martin DB7 that took features from both it and the XJ-S. The XK8 remained in production until 2005 when it was replaced by the next generation that borrowed heavily from it.