Next Jaguar Project 7 to be even bolder
Next Jaguar's SVO division is already contemplating a 'more individual' successor to the Project 7 special edition
Jaguar bosses have admitted that the firm has started to think about a successor to the limited-edition Project 7 sports car, Auto Express can reveal.
The first car produced by Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division, Project 7 was a heavily modified F-Type using the same 567bhp supercharged V8 now available in the ‘regular’ F-Type SVR.
All of the 250 Project 7s sold out and second-hand values have recently started to rise beyond the original £135,000 price. Now senior Jaguar officials say that early discussions have taken place about how the company could build a successor.
When asked if Jaguar would consider custom-bodied cars in future, design director Ian Callum said: “We’ve thought about it. We’ve started asking, ‘What do we do after Project 7?’, because I’d like to take it a step further. And that means making it more of an individual car than an F-Type.
“But the business case is hugely difficult,” he added. “What can you charge for it?What do you charge for a Jaguar? How far can it go? With a supercar like the C-X75, you could probably go to £1million, but with a limited number of, say, 200 cars. And even that, as a business case, was pushing it. So if you’re going to get into the realms of something that’s a modified F-Type, it’s very difficult.”
John Edwards, boss of Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations, said the success of Project 7 had taken management by surprise. “We said we’d build 250 examples of Project 7, and within the business there was quite a lot of nervousness about that,” he told us.
“We kind of plucked that number out of thin air, really. I personally had to guarantee we’d sell 250; as it turned out, we could have sold 500.” Edwards stated he’d “made a conscious decision” to make SVR performance Jaguars four-wheel drive – potentially leaving space for more extreme rear-drive editions like the Project 7.
However, he indicated that SVO would focus on production runs of cars, rather than exclusive bespoke one-offs. “Custom bodies are not our plan; we want to push the cosmetics of the car to the limit, not re-engineer the car as some others have done,” Edwards said.
What you think Jaguar SVO should focus on with the next Project 7? Let us know in the comments section below...
