Watch (and listen to that V8) as Jaguar beats own 'Ring record

Published Jul 24, 2019

Share

Nürburgring, Germany - Was Jaguar really worried about losing its Nürburgring Nordschleife lap record or was it simply keen to bombard YouTube users with yet another publicity stunt? The latter, obviously, but the result of these efforts is that you can now watch the Jaguar Project 8 beat its own four-door production car ‘Ring record in the 360-degree on-board video below.

Almost two years after setting the initial record, Jaguar development driver Vincent Radermecker returned to the Nordschleife and lapped the 20.6km loop in 7 minutes 18.361 seconds, which is exactly 2.9 seconds faster than his original feat.

For the record, that is seven seconds faster than any other four-door production car has ever managed, according to officially-verified times.

The Jaguar XE Project 8 is powered by the most potent version of Jaguar’s 5-litre supercharged V8 engine, with outputs of 441kW and 700Nm, as well as a claimed 0-100km/h sprint time of just 3.7 seconds and a top speed of 320km/h.

The Project 8 is not just a far cry from your standard XEs in performance terms - Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) engineers put considerable effort into cutting weight and honing the all-wheel-drive chassis and aerodynamic abilities. 

The aero package includes an adjustable front splitter, flat underbody and adjustable rear wing, while an active electronic rear differential and bespoke, manually adjustable shocks that can be lowered by 15mm for track use, sharpen the handling, along with 20-inch wheels.

“The original Nürburgring time set by Jaguar XE SV Project 8 demonstrated the extreme performance envelope 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,” said SVO engineering director Jamal Hameedi

“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”.

IOL Motoring

Related Topics: