Not too long ago, few people would ever have dreamed that Jaguar would build an SUV. The British luxury brand had a long and proud reputation for producing luxurious sedans and beautiful, powerful sports cars, but left SUV duties to its formidable Land Rover sister-brand. The F-Pace was therefore the company’s first foray into the world of the high-riding SUV, and its roaring success has now seen Jaguar roll out the F-Pace SVR in New York.
The Jaguar F-Pace SVR combines the company’s newfound SUV prowess with its pedigree of producing high-performance sports cars. It has all the SUV style and luxury we’ve come to expect from the fabulous F-Pace, but this one developed by Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division has the company’s now-familiar 5.0-litre supercharged V8 under the hood.
In this case the engine develops as much as 405kW and 680Nm of torque, which translates to a very impressive top speed of 283km/h and an even more impressive 0 to 100km/h time of just 4.1 seconds.
There’s much more to the SVR than just a big, powerful engine though. This potent F-Pace also boasts stiffer springs, wider and lighter forged alloy wheels, bigger brakes, an electronic active rear differential, a lightweight variable active exhaust, specially tuned adaptive suspension software, electric steering, an eight-speed automatic gearbox, all-wheel drive and a Dynamic Driving Mode.
Aerodynamics have also been tweaked by adding larger air intakes, rear bumper side strakes, vents on the wings to lower wheel-arch pressure, reduce lift and increase cooling, and a unique hood with air vents to remove hot air from the engine compartment as well as to look good. More aesthetic enhancements include flared wheel arches and a body kit that delivers a considerably more muscular appearance to that of the standard F-Pace, and at the back there’s a big, fat quad exhaust.
The interior hasn’t been left out either, so there are thinner, lightweight sport seats that stay with the luxury nature of Jaguar by being covered in very smart quilted leather. The back also gets sportier seats with a similar fixed headrest design to the ones in the front. There’s also the pistol-like sport gear selector from the Jaguar F-Type that replaces the standard rotary shifter design we’re used to seeing in the F-Pace. – AFP Relaxnews
