Since its public debut at last July’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, the fastest-ever four-door Jaguar has undergone numerous enhancements to ensure Project 8 is the fastest and most thrilling of all road-legal four-door sedans. All Project 8 models will be built in left-hand drive configuration only and the deliveries would commence this summer.
Scheduled for production in June, the Project 8 is a four-door car with genuine supercar performance. Top speed is 321.8 km/h and 0-96 km/h acceleration takes 3.3 seconds. It set a new four-door production car record around the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife last year – the ‘gold’ standard for all-round high performance. Its best lap of 7 min 21.23 seconds was quicker than many supercars, and broke the old four-door record by more than 10 seconds.
Check out the new Jaguar XE Project 8 in detail in the video below:
With a 441.3 kW (592 hp) version of Jaguar’s legendary supercharged 5.0-litre V8, Project 8 is the most powerful Jaguar road car to date. No more than 300 of these limited-edition cars will be hand assembled by Special Vehicle Operations at its Technical Centre in Coventry.
Unlike most high performance production saloons, the four-wheel-drive Project 8 is studded with genuine motor racing technology, which includes (as standard)
- Adjustable ride height
- Adjustable camber
- Adjustable front splitter and rear wing
- Flat underbody
- Differential oil cooler
- Track-perfect Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres as standard (the only option) on forged 50.8 cm (20) wheels and – a production car first – F1-style ceramic wheel bearings
While the Jaguar XE SV Project 8 retains body components from the standard XE such as the roof and front door skins, both made from aluminium, the vented bonnet and flared front wings and bumpers are made from lightweight carbon fibre. The front uprights, two-part upper wishbones, balljoints in place of rubber bushes, twin coil springs, dampers, lower suspension bushes, anti-roll bars and latest specification carbon ceramic brakes are all new and bespoke to Project 8.
In its most extreme settings, and in ‘Track’ mode, Project 8 delivers 122 kg of downforce at 299.3 km/h – that’s 25 percent more than its nearest rival. And, 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 12.2 kg 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.
Now, all figures mentioned in the above data are manufacturer’s estimates and are subject to final confirmation ahead of production. We’ll keep you posted with more updates.
