This beautiful feline – offered as both a coupe and a proper ragtop – has been in the wind for the better part of a year, but only recently landed in Canada. We called Jaguar, sweet-talked them, gave up some first-borns, and convinced them to hand over the keys. It certainly beat driving our desks for the day.

Think of the XKR-S as a once-delicate Miss Universe contestant who suddenly decided to take up ballet, Mixed Martial Arts and an addiction to whey protein shakes. The gentle XK has been transformed into something more agile, more driver-focused and just a little bit scary. It’s billed as a “sub-exotic,” not quite a Lambo or Ferrari, but still capable of 0-96 km/h in 4.2 seconds and a full 300 km/h.

Walking up to this cat, you know it’s got some sharp claws. The rear spoiler’s the most obvious hint, but there’s also a lower ride height, carbon-fibre add-ons and those front “nacelles” (didn’t Kirk’s Enterprise have those?) Ian Callum, Design Director of Jaguar Cars, said, “the physics required to achieve 300km/h have led the aesthetic; if you don’t like the way it looks, you probably won’t like the way it drives either.”

But we do.

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This Jag’s got a stiff upper lip, more so than anything else from the British marquee in recent memory. In other words, the XKR-S is meant to be driven and handled with a decided firmness (do avoid potholes with that recalibrated steering, though.) Built from a featherweight aluminium architecture, the car feels more alive than any six-figure sporting machine we’ve piloted in recent memory. Maybe even a little dangerous in the sweaty clutches of a ham-fisted driver.

The 5.0-litre supercharged V8 under that long bonnet (‘hood’ in Limey-speak) has been extensively recalibrated and bolts on all kinds of new plumbing to allow for another 40 lb-ft of torque and horsepower over the standard XKR. This means that, in total, you’ve got 550 horsepower and 502 lb-ft of torque sent to the rear wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission. And the pièce de résistance? The new active sports exhaust system. Witnesses say they could here us coming back to the office blocks away.

“Duality” is one of XKR-S’ goals, i.e. a car that can drive to the famed Nürburgring in total comfort, but still turn a benchmark sub-eight minute lap. As such, the interior still possesses an intimate, luxurious space, complete with a red start button that pulses “like a heartbeat,” new features and trim (like the carbon leather accents), a new steering wheel and snug performance front seats. Our favourite feature? The way the Jaguar Drive Selector rises from the centre console when you stab that start button. Drama…

Only 15 examples of the $139,000 XKR-S Coupe are bound for Canada ($146,000 if you prefer to go topless).

You’re coveting the car on this page right now because it’s oozing $123,900 of roofless, German, two-seat perfection. Few motorcars in the world today offer the sublime al fresco combination of silken smoothness, velocity, overt luxurious and NASA tech as the SL. You want this Mercedes-Benz because few machines on four wheels personify style, taste and status quite so flawlessly.

To mark the flagship Benz’s 60th birthday, it’s been redone from rubber to folding magnesium roof, becoming even more wonderfully excessive. It now darkens its own sunroof by electronically realigning the particles within the glass; uses its own spaceframe to reverberate and enrich the tones of the sound system, and it can even interface with Facebook via your smartphone. Wave your foot under the rear bumper and the trunk lid powers open or closed autonomously. The SL’s even scrapped the tried-and-true way of building windshield wipers for a better adaptive system with laser-cut blades.

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Dropping into the driver’s seat, you first notice the leather hide and expensive-looking trim. It’s everywhere. Then there are the buttons. So. Many. Buttons. Twelve on the wheel, more around the radio and climate controls and yet more by the shifter and click-scroll wheel for the car’s multimedia system. Overwhelming at first, it’s all easily understood within those first few glorious hours behind the wheel. What’s more—in a remarkable feat of German aerodynamic finesse—with top down, windows and wind deflector up, you can have a normal conversation with your passenger while cruising at 120 km/h.

Car geeks will doubtlessly comb the details of how the Merc’s lost 300 lbs, via a new, 90 percent aluminum core or how two turbos made the now-smaller V8 engine somehow more powerful and more efficient than last year’s model. For our purposes here, you need only know that few cars can get 429 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque to the road with this level of polish. Naught to 100 takes just 4.6 seconds, and there are even more potent AMG versions of this car coming soon with outputs well over 500 hp. It goes without saying that this amount of power is completely unnecessary in a road car—but that was never the point anyway.

Inset Photos: Robert Watson

Styling: Donovan Whyte/Judy Inc.