“The fastest high performance saloon in the world just keeps getting faster.”John Edwards, Managing Director, Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations
“The fastest high performance saloon in the world just keeps getting faster,” said John Edwards, Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations Managing Director. “The Jaguar XE SV Project 8 development team at Special Vehicle Operations keep pushing boundaries – the drive to do that is in our designers’ and engineers’ blood.”
Project 8 can accelerate from 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in just 3.3 seconds on its way to a top speed of 200 mph (321 km/h). in 2017 it set a new four-door production car lap record around the Nürburgring Nordschleife of 7 minutes and 21.23 seconds, which broke the old four-door record by more than 10 seconds.
With a 592 hp version of Jaguar’s supercharged 5.0-litre V8, Project 8 is the most powerful Jaguar road car to date. Project 8 is the second Collector’s Edition Jaguar from Special Vehicle Operations, the first was the 2014 F-TYPE Project 7.
“The good thing about building only 300 cars, all hand-made, is that you can keep developing the car right up to the start of production,” said David Pook, Project 8’s Vehicle Dynmaics Manager. “And we’ve done just that. The springs have got stiffer and so have the engine mounts. The suspension arm bushes have changed. The brakes have been refined for the exact pedal feel and performance we want. This has all been done to make the car even more responsive and to handle even better. But the biggest changes are to software. They are all small adjustments – to improve performance, feel, responsiveness, refinement. We keep honing the whole car, relentlessly. We’re never really happy. We keep challenging ourselves to keep improving the car, and push boundaries. It’s certainly even faster, better handling and more responsive than it was six months ago. All that effort has been worth it.”
“Power delivery and gear shifts are the most visceral we have ever offered on a Jaguar – every 1/100th of a second improvement in shift time adds up over a complete lap of the Nürburgring,” said Stanton. “Rest assured, no stone has been left unturned in our mission to make this the most rewarding Jaguar driver’s car ever.”
In its most extreme settings, and in ‘Track’ mode, Project 8 delivers 122 kg of downforce at 186 mph (300 km/h), 25 percent more than its nearest rival. It is the first Jaguar to offer a Track mode, standard on all versions, which tailors driveline and stability control systems for circuit use by sharpening throttle and steering responses and tuning the dampers to their most aggressive setting.
Two versions of Project 8 are available. The four-seat version contains all the motorsport technology that is the hallmark of Project 8. In addition, there is a more hardcore two-seat Track Pack version that saves 12.2kg in weight and includes carbon fibre racing seats and four-point safety harnesses. In place of the back seat is a solid metal panel and Harness Retention Hoop, which helps boost torsional rigidity by 27 percent over the four-seat version.
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