It Looks Like Jaguar Is About To Smash The Four-Door 'Ring Record (Again)

By the looks of it, Jaguar wasn’t satisfied with the 7min 21.23sec lap time it set at the Nurburgring last year with the XE SV Project 8. As it stands, the time was enough to nab the four-door lap record from the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio by 11 seconds, but two XE SVs have been filmed hammering around the Nordschleife once more.

This could simply be part of a final testing programme, but why wouldn’t Jaguar have a go at improving the time? After all, the company announced only a few days ago that the car has been extensively fettled since the last ‘Ring outing, with stiffer springs and engine mounts added, along with new suspension arm bushes and tweaks to the vehicle’s software.

As Project 8 Vehicle Dynamics Manager David Pook explained at the time: “The good thing about building only 300 cars, all hand-made, is that you can keep developing the car right up to the start of production.” Plus, the car isn’t sold out yet, so a headline-grabbing ‘Ring time would be an effective way to shift a few more of the £150k beasts.

What’s particularly interesting is one of the test mules can be seen in the footage sporting an unusual ducktail-style spoiler (UPDATE: we have since been told by Jaguar that this spoiler has been used in testing before). Is Jaguar cooking up a new version of Project 8? We look forward to finding out.