THE HAUS OF CLAUS; In your sleek Jag he'll help you raus.(News)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

Claus Ettensberger's first tuning project was the 50-cc moped he rode as a teenager in the small German village in which he grew up, but you'd never know it from the line of products he sells today.

Claus Ettensberger Corp. concentrates on more high-end vehicles, assigning a specific line of parts to each make. Specifically, that's AC Schnitzer for BMW, Lorinser for Mercedes, Oettinger for Audis and Volks-wagens, TechArt for Porsche and, the latest addition to the CEC garage, J Nothelle (jay-no-TELL-uh) for Jaguar.

In keeping with CEC's German bent, J Nothelle is a German company, headquartered in Duisburg near Dussel-dorf in Northern Deutschland. Considering Jaguar's long racing heritage, it is surprising there aren't more aftermarket performance parts for its cars. And more surprising that one of the few tuners concentrating on Jaguar is from Germany.

J Nothelle traces its involvement in motorsports back to a racing NSU it built in 1967. Racing versions of Porsches, Audis and Volkswagens followed. It was only two years ago that J Nothelle focused its attention on Jaguar. Since it was some- thing of a guinea pig, the CEC S-Type R we drove featured mostly cosmetic improvements. Engine upgrades are scheduled soon, promising an additional 100 hp and knocking two seconds off the car's 0-to-60 time.

Granted, any Jaguar with an R on it is already an impressive performer, and you could argue that the most impressive part of driving this Jaguar is still its 4.2-liter supercharged V8 powertrain, to which J Nothelle add-ed only a sport exhaust system with flashy stainless-steel tips ($2,299).

But power isn't the only thing you can tune. Lowering the car with Eibach springs drops the center of gravity and gives it a more hunkered-down, cat-like appearance. The press kit says the $2,699 lowering kit, which includes appropriate Bilstein shocks, takes the car down 15 mm. The CEC marketing guy said it was 25 mm. Whichever, it looks nice and covers the new wheels and tires better. J Nothelle replaced the stock 18-inch wheels with ...