Jaguar XE SV Project 8 BREAKS its own Nurburgring record. Or does it?

The Jaguar XE SV Project 8, Jaguar’s bonkers performance take on the XE rep-mobile, breaks its own Nurburgring lap record. And you can still buy one.

It was back in late 2017 that the Jaguar XE SV Project 8 went off to the Nurburgring and set a lap record for a four door production car, adding a bit of bragging rights to help Jaguar sell the £150,000 limited run performance XE.

A year later, and Jaguar were off to Laguna Seca with the XE SV to add a lap record there as they clearly needed to keep up the profile to try and flog the 300 XE SV Project 8 cars planned.

Fast forward to last month, and Jaguar revealed the XE SV Project 8 Touring specification as a toned-down take on the lairy-looking regular model, another little sales ploy to try and mop up a few more buyers.

Now, Jaguar has been back at the Nurburgring with the regular XE SV model, and have managed to shave 2.9 seconds off their previous time, completing a flying lap in 7min 18.361sec. A new lap record for a four-door production car, say Jaguar.

But there is a bit of a fly in the ointment of Jaguar’s boast of a new lap record, and that’s the Mercedes-AMG GT 63S four door.

Shortly after Jaguar claimed the record in 2017, Mercedes took the four-door AMG GT 63S off to the Nurburgring and set a time of 7 min 25.42 sec, with Mercedes claiming it was a new Nurburgring record for a four-door production car.

Mercedes, not unreasonably, argued that the XE SV Project 8 is hardly a production car – just 300 units compared to series production for the AMG – and that it really didn’t count as a four-door production car because it only had two seats (there’s a roll-cage where the back seats should be).

So, who holds the Nurburgring record for a four-door production car? Mercedes or Jaguar?