Will the Jaguar F-Type SVR (pictured) soon have a BMW V8 under the bonnet?
It’s reported that Jaguar Land Rover are to replace the ageing V8 in cars like the Jaguar F-Type and Range Rover with a new V8 from BMW.
The problem for JLR is that although the AJ-V8 is knocking on, there really is no real alternative in-house that will produce the sort of power and torque the V8 can.
Yes, JLR are busy extending the range of Ingenium engines to include 3.0 litre in-line sixes (as well as 1.5 litre three-cylinder engines), but the in-line six is expected to deliver something around 500bhp at best.
That may be enough, for now, to accommodate the needs of the Range Rover and Jaguar base V8 variants, but it’s not enough for SVR performance models or even SV luxury models. So JLR need a solution.
That solution, according to industry veteran Georg Kacher, writing for Automobile Mag, is a deal with BMW to buy their new V8, a V8 that will downsize to 4.0 litres but offer power of at least 600bhp in the most potent guise and deliver emissions and economy (at least officially) vastly superior to JLR’s current Ford V8.
It may be back to the future for JLR using BMW V8s, but if it makes the continuation of the V8 viable for both JLR and BMW, it seems a very pragmatic solution.
Ashley Sutherland says
the ajv8 was released in 1996 in the xk not the 1980s
Cars UK says
Good spot – it should have read ‘1990s’!
M1TCH says
Surely it’s more probable that JLR will try and make a deal for Aston’s new V8? It would help Aston deal with the massive development costs, and there’s surely a ‘halo’ effect for Jags fitted with that engine, which I suspect wouldn’t be the case for cars fitted with an X5 engine.
Cars UK says
As far as we know, Aston Martin’s new V8 is coming from Mercedes, and JLR’s from BMW seems a similarly pragmatic move to acquire a low volume engine from a high volume maker. And let’s face it, neither Aston Martin or Jaguar can really claim their current V8s as all their own work!