There’s no official confirmation that the next car to wear Jaguar Land Rover’s SVR performance branding will be an F-type—this is an informed hypothesis. Yet aside from that small detail, we can tell you a surprising amount about it after a fascinating conversation with the boss of Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations, John Edwards.
When SVO was formed last year, most attention predictably turned to the performance derivatives it will build of both Jaguar and Land Rover products. Edwards is keen to stress this is only one part of his division’s wide-ranging responsibilities, although admits it’s the one that has created most speculation.
“SVO is split between luxury, capability, and performance,” Edwards said, “AMG or [BMW] M lies in one of those areas, but we’re in all three.”
“Luxury” includes the SVAutobiography Range Rover, with Edwards confirming that we’ll see the same branding on other cars—including the Evoque—while “capability” refers to plans for extreme off-road SVX variants of Land Rover products, which we’ll tell you about in a separate story. SVO also has responsibility for creating limited-edition specials like the Jaguar Project 7 and for coordinating heritage activities for both Jaguar and Land Rover. On top of that, SVO will do bespoke work for customers determined to do cost-no-object things and—if that’s not enough—has also taken responsibility for producing armored versions of the two brands’ products.
Right, back to the SVR stuff—and our belief the badge will next be seen on the rump of the F-type. Although Edwards declined to confirm this, he did give us an almost as many hints as a game of Clue. We’ve already seen the Range Rover Sport SVR (that’s it above), and Edwards admitted it would be “fair to expect” the next SVR will come from the Jaguar side of the family. He also said that it was very unlikely there would be both SVR and SVAutobiography versions of the same car, and that SVR versions will be based on established cars with several years of life ahead of them, not run-out models. And the XE is only just going on sale, the first-generation XF is approaching retirement in favor of a new model, and the XJ seems to be better suited to the luxury treatment. This process of elimination—apparently—leaves only the F-type standing among the currently produced models.
Edwards was also happy to talk in more general terms about what he expects from any performance derivative. “Any potential SVR model is subject to what I call a DNA test,” he said. “We have to make sure it’s the right car and that it can deliver what we need it to.” He says an SVR will have to have more power and performance and be lighter, but also says that, whether a Land Rover or a Jaguar, it will also have all-wheel drive.
All of which the F-type should be able to manage. The current top-spec R coupe version has a 550-hp version of JLR’s familiar 5.0-liter supercharged V-8, but the company has already announced the same engine in the Project 7 will produce 575 horsepower. Given that the Range Rover SVR has 40 more horsepower than the stock V-8, it’s not a stretch to see an F-type SVR with more than 600 horsepower. And the R already offers an all-wheel-drive system.
“We need to be careful not to lose focus,” Edwards said. “We won’t build too many versions—SVR won’t be for everything. But when we do one, we will make sure that it is very, very special.” We really hope to be proved right on this one.
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