Refined Insanity SVR F-Type Coupé

This Jaguar wearing the svo badge is the quickest road Jaguar ever. We put it to the test.

- Tristan Hughes - Les. Hughes

SHOCK AND AWE COME STRAIGHT TO MIND. NOT the shock that it does the job promised, and awe is a given just looking at it - but the five litre supercharged, all wheel drive, F-Type Coupé with ceramic brakes and carefully handcrafted by the Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicles operations (SVO) team is the quickest thing we have ever driven on the road. It has the bare-faced looks to draw a crowd from nowhere, but is much more than that, and will always be a collector’s Jaguar.

We first saw this particular F-Type SVR at the Jaguar Land Rover HQ a few weeks earlier. it had just arrived, and the team were as bedazzled by the car, its beauty and potential, as we were - and that was merely sitting in the car park. Now we had it for a week to enjoy. To top that we also felt how special its performance really was when Jaguar’s official driving head Tim Jones took us around the Eastern Creek track in Sydney. He showed us what we could not do legally on public roads. That was, to stretch it to the limit of its performance capabilities.

In 2015/16 the rapidly growing SVO division sold around 3600 vehicles. According to John Edwards, its Managing Director: “The vision for Special Vehicle operations is to launch one new SVO car every year, on average, for at least the next four years”.

As well as creating halo products SVO is also tasked with designing bespoke cars for wealthy customers, and managing the company’s historical recreations and restorations including the new Xk-SS and Lightweight E-Types.

The SVR F-Type wears special and even larger wheels and tyres than the ‘regular’ F-Type R, is festooned with functional carbon fibre bits including a unique rear aerodynamic wing which reaches higher, and is exquisitely trimmed with quilted door linings and snug fitting seats plus suede trim on the centre console vent.

It has a flat underbody, and has a top speed of 200 mph.