Jaguar’s most powerful road legal car in history, the XE SV Project 8, is soon to be on display in New Zealand and will be available for Jaguar’s Art of Performance Tour this year, with plans for the car to be on track at Hampton Downs in 2020.


The Project 8 broke its own Nordschliefe Nurburgring record earlier this month in the Project 8 Challenge, setting itself seven seconds apart from any other four-door production car to complete the 20.6km lap.


With 600PS from a 5.0 litre Supercharged V8 engine, Project 8 demonstrated its performance capability by completing the lap in just 7min 18.361sec, which is 2.9 seconds faster than its previous benchmark set in November 2017.


To ensure optimum results, Project 8 was fitted with new off-the-shelf ultra-high performance Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tyres, tested and chosen by SV engineers for their capability on the track. The road-legal tyres use rubber compounds directly transferred from Michelin’s competition tyres.


Jamal Hameedi, Engineering Director of Jaguar Special Vehicle Operations, says the original Nürburgring record set by Jaguar XE SV Project 8 demonstrated the extreme performance of the world’s fastest production sedan, but the SV team is driven by a motorsport mentality and we knew Project 8 could go even faster.


“This new official record time is a fitting reward for everyone who has played a part in pushing the boundaries for our customers with Project 8,” he says.


Production will be strictly limited to 300 cars worldwide, each one hand-assembled at the SVO Technical Centre in Warwickshire, England.


To learn more, please contact your local authorised Jaguar retailer for more information.