By God, Jaguar have some confidence and panache at the moment. We’ve written before about some of the great road cars they’re building right now and how they seem to be able to effortlessly blend their racing heritage and history with great contemporary chassis engineering to create some exciting cars these days. There’s a confidence and British Courage from Jaguar these days that probably hasn’t been seen in many decades. It’s that confidence that’s driven the launch of the Jaguar Project 7 concept as a limited production Jaguar this week.
Jaguar Project 7 Into Production
The Project 7 concept was announced last year as a styling exercise with no roof, a single seat and that distinctive headrest fairing inspired by the D Type, Project 7 will be built by Jaguar Land Rover’s new Special Vehicle Operations facility. Jaguar see a significant market in producing limited numbers of exclusive vehicles aimed at collectors, the department will in all probability be responsible for the Lightweight E Type project announced recently too. This bold statement from Managing Director John Edwards sums it up:
“Special Operations exists to develop a suite of products and services that enable our most discerning and enthusiastic customers to indulge their passion for our cars. F-TYPE Project 7 is a perfect example of one such product. It’s the most powerful production Jaguar ever built, and pays homage to Jaguar’s seven outright Le Mans victories with distinctive design cues inspired by the Jaguar D-type which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.”
Jaguar are building 250 cars, each one with a 5.0 litre supercharged V8 uprated to 575PS, with a huge 680NM of torque. Transmission is the eight speed Quickshift gearbox with revised software and shift points, sending power to a torque vectoring differential, with braking uprated to carbon ceramic discs. Practicalities include the restoration of a passenger seat and a removable, stowable roof with other styling enhancements including a cut-down windscreen
We loved the caricature sports car exhaust of the XKR-S, the Project 7 F Type is taking that tune a stage further, Jaguar claiming “Project 7 features a switchable Active Sports Exhaust system with quad, matt-black ceramic coated, outboard-mounted tailpipes. The system uses electronically-controlled bypass valves in the rear section of the exhaust which are mapped to open according to a range of parameters, effectively altering the exhaust gas routing into a free-flowing straight-through arrangement to both reduce back pressure and enhance sound quality.” Your neighbours will love it….
Further chassis alliterating include bespoke, Special Vehicle Operations-engineered front suspension knuckles which give increased negative camber, revised top mounts and new front/rear anti-roll bars. The front and rear spring and damper units are height adjustable, and both spring rates and damper internals have been tailored specifically.
So, my thoughts are this. Head down to Jaguar, make sure you’re at the front of the queue for a Project 7 F Type, then get your entry in nice and early for the 2015 Mille Miglia….
