News : Jaguar Project 7 debuts at Goodwood

Jaguar Project 7 (4)

The Goodwood Festival of Speed has established itself as one of the prime events for manufacturers to show off their prototypes and concept cars. Jaguar’s Project 7 continues the trend, making its dynamic debut at the Festival, which celebrates its 20th Anniversary on 12 July.

The Project 7 is based on the F-Type, but is more focused as a driver’s car, featuring a raft of visual changes to emphasise the car’s link with its maker’s competition history, and is so-called because Jaguar won Le Mans seven times. The rumour mill in the run-up to the Festival of Speed had gone into overdrive, speculating that the coupe version of the F-Type would make its debut, but a fascinating performance concept will roar up the hill instead.

It’s a handsome car – the main changes over the F-Type are its Porsche 911 Speedster-style fairing behind the driver’s head and a number of bespoke carbonfibre components – a new front splitter, side skirts and rear diffuser; lowered windscreen and restyled front bumper. Inside, it’s distinguished by a composite single-seat and racing harness.

Project 7 went from being an experimental sketch by Jaguar Designer Cesar Pieri to the track in just four months. Ian Callum, Jaguar’s Director of Design, said: ‘When I saw this sketch of a low-screen, single-seat F-Type, I felt enthused by it and wanted to take it further. So I encouraged Cesar and Alister Whelan, Chief Designer, Jaguar, to take it to the next stage and develop a workable concept, and with the support of key departments across the business, Project 7 was born.’

Powering it is a tweaked version of Jaguar’s vocal 5.0-litre supercharged V8 engine in 545bhp form. That should give the Project 7 a useful boost over the V8 S it’s based upon. One thing we do know is that it’s going to sound good – Project 7 features a free-flow exhaust system with a ceramic finish. We’ll have to wait and see how well it drives, but JLR’s feted chassis guru Mike Cross is confident: ‘It’s visceral in every sense – its response, its sound and its sheer performance. I’m very much looking forward to driving it at Goodwood.

Keith Adams

12 Comments

  1. To me, this carries strong hints of D type. But had it been painted in BRG, that would have been too much. Somehow, blue looks right, even if it is the FRENCH racing colour.
    Like the “scoop renderings” of the next X-type in Auto Expr*ss this week, this just confirms that Jag are in good hands.
    PS I just turned down 2 tickets to FoS due to commitments elsewhere. Can I just get the soundtrack please?

  2. This is gorgeous.

    Reminds me if the 1950s Mercedes racers that the D types went up against and that’s a compliment.

  3. On reflection I reckon this is actually a cringeworthy cop-out by JLR… Do they actually need to do a half arsed special this early into the production run?

  4. This actually looks like what we started out with on XK180. The fin and front bumper are very similar.

  5. It looks okay to me although I agree with Andrew Elphick on questioning whether Jaguar Cars needs to be producing a design and engineering special based on the F Type so early on its production life.

    Personally I would like to have seen something to give us some subtle teasing about the successor to the current XK range. That said, I do like its colour. British Racing Green would have been too much of a cliche.

  6. I’m with Andrew E on this. Doesn’t seem any point to it. Bah. I’m going to back to my pint of bitter and do the crossword.

  7. It’s not really a compliment to Jaguar to have one of its cars compared to a merk. Germany doesn’t do beautiful cars, they are much more stolid, whereas Jaguars are breathtaking in their beauty and style. Whatever you say, you are wrong and you will know you are wrong.

  8. Germany don’t do beautiful cars? These two disagree.

    [IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/6fs30l.jpg[/IMG]

    [IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/2mmuqv.jpg[/IMG]

  9. Never mind all that – isn’t that final picture a real work of art? Stunning car pictured against the gorgeous Teme Valley at Shelsley Walsh. Worth putting on the wall.

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