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Jaguar's design boss wants to build another sports car model

The global sports car segment is facing a strong, glacial headwind, but Jaguar believes smoother waters are right around the corner. One of the company's top executives predicted the market will recover in the coming years, and he wants his team to be ahead of the curve when that happens. "Jaguar will always build sports cars. I'd love to do more than one," affirmed Julian Thomson, the man who replaced Ian Callum at the head of the brand's design department, in an interview with British magazine Auto Express. The only sports car currently in the Jaguar portfolio is the F-Type. While enthusiasts still love sports cars, the run-of-the-mill buyers that keep automakers profitable have rejected them in favor of crossovers and SUVs. And, requests for cleaner, more efficient cars make developing fun cars considerably more difficult; even Mazda is looking into taking the Miata into hybrid or electric territory. Jaguar faces the same challenges, but Thomson expects the sports car segment will rise up from its ashes when motorists realize they're trapped in a sea of crossovers. "In this day and age of electrification and autonomous technology, a part of me thinks there may be a resurgence of people enjoying transportation for transportation's sake, and driving for driving's sake," he said. "Whether that makes the market bigger I don’t know, but I think there is a threat to volume production cars, and they are going to struggle to find a position on what they do. IÂ’d hope that truly special and luxury cars, sports cars, will find a place where they have the option to be more exotic." He stopped short of confirming a second sports car is under development, so it's far too early to pinpoint the segment it would compete in. In the meantime, Jaguar just gave the F-Type a facelift (pictured), and its vehicle development team has already started working on the model's successor. The rumor mill has started spinning; we've heard reports of the nameplate pulling a Corvette by going mid-engined, adopting BMW's 4.4-liter V8, and getting a battery-electric powertrain. The latter option would slot neatly into Jaguar's electrification push, but Thomson hinted it's easier said than done. He explained making an electric sports car with a huge amount of power, like the 2,000-horsepower Lotus Evija, is not the answer.

Jaguar working on 600-hp F-Type SVR

Thinking about buying a new Jaguar F-Type? You've got a number of supercharged engine options to choose from... and soon you'll have one more. According to Motor Trend, Jaguar and its Special Vehicle Operations unit are working on a new SVR version of the F-Type, and it's tipped to pack 600 or more horsepower. That's more than anything Jaguar (or for that matter Land Rover) has offered for public consumption to date, but follows a delineated progression of output. As it is, the 5.0-liter supercharged V8 offered at launch in the F-Type convertible was already churning out 500 metric horsepower. Then came the F-Type R coupe that bumped output up to 550, followed by the limited-edition Project 7 roadster with 575. Topping 600 would only follow naturally, then, but would give the F-Type a broad range of outputs, starting at 335 hp and nearly doubling once it hits the top. It would also handsomely eclipse the Mercedes-AMG GT S (503 hp) and Porsche 911 Turbo S (552 hp), rival the Aston Martin Vantage GT12 (592 hp), and give even the new Audi R8 V10 Plus (610 hp) a run for its money. The bigger question is what form the SVR model will take, and with what other equipment. Coupe or convertible, rear-drive or all-wheel drive, automatic or manual... it's too early to say at this point. But we can probably expect much of the equipment from Project 7 – active diff, carbon-ceramic brakes... the works – to reappear in the SVR as well.

Jaguar F-Pace prototype goes to work at the Nurburgring

Jaguar is hard at work again, testing its upcoming F-Pace crossover. And here's our latest look at the prototype testing at the Nurburgring. The tester spotted here appears the same as the one we recently saw undergoing cold-weather development, only this time it's wearing summer rubber on fullsize wheels instead of winter tires on smaller ones. It's also missing the old prototype's auxiliary lights, and a bit more camouflage covering the quarter panels. The fact that it was seen on the Nordschleife, however, bodes well for the F-Pace and speaks to its orientation: Jaguar's first crossover promises to be geared towards performance, a sort of on-road counterpart to the off-road prowess of the SUVs offered by its sister brand Land Rover. We're looking forward to seeing the finished product at the Frankfurt Motor Show in the fall, but in the meantime you can scope out the spy shots in the slideshow above.