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Audi, Jag, Kia and Tesla top Strategic Vision 2014 Total Quality Index

A couple weeks ago, J.D. Power released its latest Initial Quality Study, which gave high marks to Porsche, Hyundai and General Motors, with the latter earning more individual IQS awards than any other manufacturer. Now, it's Strategic Vision's turn, and it's doling out its praise not to Porsche, but to Tesla, which wasn't even included in the JD Power IQS.
The Model S was named the best vehicle overall in total quality, while Porsche's corporate brother and endurance-racing rival, Audi, was named the best premium brand, alongside Jaguar. Strategic Vision cited the Q5 and the ancient Q7 for individual segment awards, as well as the A5, which was a mere point off the top of its segment. SV also handed out compliments for the Audi's interior work. The win for the German brand is a nice improvement over its IQS score, with which it landed above the industry average, but solidly mid-pack.
Jaguar was without a segment winner, although SV did say that the Indian-owned English brand had a number of vehicles very near the top of their segments. This is the second significant win for Jag in two weeks, after it finished second overall on the JD Power IQS a few weeks ago.

Jaguar XE SV Project 8 now available for Nurburgring rides

There are a number of ways to experience the Nurburgring Nordschleife, including being driven around by a professional driver. Jaguar runs its own program that does just such a thing called the Race Taxi program. It just became even more appealing because Jaguar has added the XE SV Project 8 as one of the available cars. In case you had forgotten, it's a special car for the program because it currently holds the record for fastest production sedan at the track. Even without a record to its fame, the Jaguar XE SV Project 8 is special for other reasons. It's the most powerful production Jaguar with 592 horsepower. That engine can propel it to 60 mph in a claimed 3.3 seconds. Most of the car's exterior is completely unique to the car. It's a rare machine, too, with only 300 sold. If you want to go for a ride, well first you have to get to the Nurburgring. But once you're there, hand Jaguar 199 euros, or about $227 at current exchange rates, and a driver will take you for a lap of the track. The company brags that you'll experience speeds of over 155 mph, and hit 1.8g in the steeply banked Karussell corner. You only get the one lap, but at least you know it will be a roughly 7 1/2 -minute thrill ride. If you can't get into the Project 8, you'll still be able to ride along in the 575-horsepower F-Type SVR or XJR575. Related Video:

Jaguar F-Type Coupe spotted testing

The automotive world has been hot on fire with the Jaguar F-Type of late. We're still recovering from the excitement of driving Jaguar's new sports car for the first time, and recently we had a predictive look at a coupe version. As it turns out, those 'patent sketches' were just a warm up for the real deal F-Type Coupe, as this brand new set of spy images proves out.
Word from our shooter is that security around the F coupe was and is really tight. The photographer had to hide in the cargo area of his clandestine SUV, just to catch these few, not-perfectly-clear images (that odd color your see is window tint). Still, the photos are good enough to see that the rakish silhouette of the hardtop is going to do justice to the convertible. In fact, the new top seems to flow quite perfectly into the car's rear haunches.
Expect that the F-Type Coupe will share an engine lineup with the roadster, meaning both a naturally aspirated and a supercharged V6, as well as a V8 option. Hot R and R-S versions of the Jaguar coupe are a virtual lock, too, though how far down the product pipeline they are is unclear.