Green light for F-Type Project 7 25 | 06 | 2014
JAGUAR HAS CONFIRMED a limited run of its F-type Project 7: 250 units are to be built, each costing £135,000.
The car, which was the toast of last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed and will make its first appearance as a production car at this weekend's event, is also being used as the centrepiece for the launch of its new Special Operations (SO). It's the job of this new division to produce a suite of cars and services specifically designed for the Jaguar faithful.
Headed by former Land Rover brand boss John Edwards — who has spent the past nine months defining its structure, staffing and activities — Jaguar's SO is intended as a kind of cross between Bentley’s Mulliner and Mercedes’ AMG.
It's clear the new Project 7 flagship is a car which recalls the all-conquering Le Mans-winning D-type, whose 60th anniversary the firm is celebrating this year: yet it's swathed in contemporary styling and hardware.
And what does the '7' represent? It marks the fact that Jaguar has won Le Mans seven times since the early 1950s. Don't though go thinking this signals a return to the French classic: bosses emphasise there are no plans for an imminent return to racing.
Each of the new £135,000 cars will be electronically governed to a top speed of 186mph, and hit 0-60mph from standstill in just 3.8sec. No surprise then that it will be one of the quickest production Jaguars ever.
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Each car will be hand-built during 2015 by the new JLR sub-division called Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) and headed by Paul Newsome, the ex-Lotus, ex-Williams engineer who was chief of the recent C-X75 hybrid supercar project.
The Project 7 idea was born about 18 months ago, from the pen of a young JLR designer, Cesar Pieri, in the group’s Whitley design studio. The sketches caught the eye of design boss Ian Callum, who gave them the go-ahead because he already knew that the company was looking for a car to wow the crowds at Goodwood 2013 – which the original Project 7 subsequently did in the hands of Jaguar engineer and master wheelman Mike Cross.
The car is powered by an improved version of Jaguar’s familiar supercharged 5.0-litre V8, whose peak power is 567bhp.
Driven through the 20in rear wheels (and their optional fat Continental ContiForceContact tyres), power arrives first through a specially modified version of ZF’s eight-speed automatic gearbox (controlled, as in all Jaguars, by shift paddles) and then to a rear-mounted electronic limited-slip differential.
Externally, essentially the car is an F-type roadster relieved of its heavy hood mechanism and fitted with lightweight seats that carve a cool 80kg off the kerb weight and leave it at a respectable 1585kg.
Compared with the regular roadster, Project 7 has a new front bumper and splitter, a cut-down windscreen, a prominent fairing (incorporating a rollover bar) behind the driver’s head, new side skirts and diffuser and a deck-mounted wing.
Inside the cabin, it's clearly an F-type, but there are all-new carbonfibre-backed quilted seats, the steering wheel is Alcantara-covered and some clever colour highlights give the car a character of its own. Each example gets a uniquely numbered plaque located between the seats and signed by Dumfries-born Ian Callum.
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Jim McGill