Jaguar Land Rover's V6 Engines Will Die To Make Way For Straight-Sixes

With Jaguar’s renaissance coming on song, the company has been busy junking all of the really dated stuff that’s been holding it back. Ford platforms, ‘classical’ styling and crummy infotainment systems - they’ve all either been replaced, or (in the case of infotainment) are about to be. So, that just leaves engines, and the under-bonnet department of Jaguars - and Land Rovers - are indeed next on the menu for an upgrade.

The petrol AJ-V6s and diesel AJD-V6s currently used by Jaguar Land Rover are Ford-rooted engines that have been kicking around for some time now, so the incoming replacements reported by Car Magazine are something we like the sound of. Particularly because of what they are: turbocharged straight-sixes.

JLR’s V6 petrol is all well and good in the shouty F-Type, but it’s not terribly characterful in the XE and XF where it doesn’t have the benefit of a socking great exhaust to sing through. An inline-six should make a much more interesting noise, and it’ll be powerful: according to Car, the 3.0-litre petrol units will be good for 300-500bhp depending on state of tune. The diesels meanwhile - also 3.0-litres in size - will range from 275-400bhp.

It doesn’t take a lot of analysis to realise that this makes a great deal of sense. The engines - expected to arrive late 2017 -will essentially be Ingenium units with a couple of extra cylinders added, creating a modular range of engines. This will be a much more efficient setup, simplifying manufacturing and lowering costs.

What we’re unsure of is where this leaves the mighty 5.0-litre supercharged V8 from which the existing V6 is derived. After all, 500bhp puts the pokiest straight-six fairly close to the output offered up by the most powerful Jaguar V8 (567bhp in the F-Type SVR). However, Autocar seems to think that while V8s will still be available in future Jaguars, they’ll remain sourced from another manufacturer, potentially BMW or Mercedes after the current deal with Ford ends.

We’ll be interested to see how the V8 side of things pans out, but for now, we’re pretty excited by the idea of a return to straight-six engines for Jaguar.