New Jaguar XE SV Project 8 is brand’s most powerful road model yet

Monster new super saloon, being develop by firm's Special Vehicles Operations division, features 5.0-litre V8 engine tuned for 591bhp.

Jaguar has revealed the most powerful road-going car it has ever created. Called the Jaguar XE SV Project 8, it has been developed by the brand’s Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division as its second collectors’ edition model, following the Jaguar F-Type Project 7 from 2014.

Like the Project 7, the XE SV will be hand built at SVO’s Technical Centre in Coventry (rather than alongside regular XEs in Solihull) and it makes use of the same supercharged 5.0-litre V8 engine. But in the XE SV, power has been ramped up to unprecedented levels, peaking at 591bhp - 24bhp more than aforementioned F-Type. The XE SV is all-wheel-drive, rather than being rear-driven like the Project 7, and uses a specially tuned version of its eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox. 

Jaguar is yet to release official figures but it claims that the Project 8 is its most extreme model and will offer supercar-aping performance. This suggests it will beat the 3.5sec 0-60mph time of Jaguar’s current most accelerative road car, the all-wheel drive F-Type SVR, edging the XE SV into the realms of hardcore machinery like the Porsche 911 GT3 and ahead of fellow limited-run track special, the BMW M4 GTS.

The Project 8, pictured wearing light camouflaging, has been developed at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Jaguar is yet to confirm the specifications of the car’s chassis setup, but the modifications applied to the Project 7 XE suggest SVO’s engineers will have almost certainly fitted firmer suspension and a faster steering rack to their new machine, lowering the car to improve high-speed composure and giving the quicker responses. It sits on lightweight wheels set at a wider track, illustrated by its bulging arches.

Matching its beefed up underpinnings is a more aggressive exterior, with the XE SV gaining bespoke bodywork dominated up front by larger intakes and a spoiler on the bumper. At the back, it sports two pairs of exhaust tailpipes and the boot lid is adorned with a fixed rear wing, which generates genuine downforce. The pictures do little to reveal what modifications have been made to the cabin, but don’t be surprised to see significant weight saving measures employed here to help keep the SV’s mass down. Jaguar has remained tight-lipped on when the car will arrive, but it’s expected to make its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June where it’ll likely also be driven up the hill. When the Project 8 eventually makes production, it’ll do so as a limited-run model, with just 300 units planned globally – 50 more than the Project 7 – in left-hand drive only.

This exclusivity and the fact the car is hand built will send prices soaring well above that of the regular XE range. The quickest regular XE, the XE S, starts from £48,045, so expect the Project 7 to more than double that asking price.