This is the Jaguar XE SV Project 8, the most powerful roadgoing Jaguar ever and the latest limited edition from the company’s Special Operations division.
Previewed in camouflaged form by Jaguar ahead of a public debut at the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed at the end of June, the Project 8 follows the F-Type-based Project 7. It will be hand-assembled at SVO’s technical centre in Coventry, and only 300 examples will be produced.
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The Project 8 gets the most powerful tuned version of Jaguar Land Rover’s 5.0-litre V8 petrol engine yet seen in a production Jaguar. The supercharged unit produces 592bhp, 25bhp more than the Project 7 and a full 56bhp up on Jaguar’s supercar from the nineties, the XJ220.
The images released by Jaguar show extensive modifications to the XE’s bodywork and chassis, with what look like considerably wider tracks front and rear, deep side skirts and redesigned bodywork around the rear wheelarches. The front grille appears to contain deeper air intakes with contrasting mesh grilles, including a design that Jaguar Land Rover applied to trademark in April. There’s also a huge rear wing and a deep front splitter.
Special Operations boss John Edwards says the Project 8 is “the most extreme performance road car in the history of Jaguar”. “The SVO team is possessed by the spirit of performance and committed to creating the most thrilling driving experience imaginable,” he said. “Our clients were thrilled by the Project 7 and XE SV Project 8 takes aerodynamics and performance engineering to another level. It is conceived for enthusiasts and the most discerning collectors. The price will reflect that.”
That price tag is being withheld until the Goodwood launch, along with further technical details and performance figures. However, late last year, Edwards told Auto Express that he had “made a conscious decision” to make SVR models four-wheel drive, allowing scope for more extreme ‘Project X’ vehicles to be rear-drive. It’s likely to get a modified version of Jaguar’s ZF-sourced eight-speed automatic transmission, too.
Edwards also revealed that he could have built more than the Project 7’s limited run of 250 cars. “Within the business there was quite a lot of nervousness about that number,” he said, “and we kind of plucked it out of thin air. I had to guarantee we’d sell 250; as it turned out, we could have sold 500.”
Jaguar charged around £130,000 for Project 7; Edwards’ bullish comments about pricing suggest that Project 8 is going to be comfortably north of that figure. BMW charged around £121,000 for its two-door M4 GTS as recently as 2015, so Jaguar could potentially push the Project 8’s price to more than £140,000.
The choice of an XE for the second ‘Project’ model is an interesting one - because it comes ahead of a ‘conventional’ XE SVR that has been spied under development. That model - whose more subtle styling is visible, even below Jaguar’s disguise - is expected to have around 500bhp and be a rival for the BMW M3 and Mercedes C63 AMG.
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