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Porsche 911 Turbo and Nissan GT-R Nismo star in World's Greatest Drag Race 4

We love Motor Trend's annual World's Greatest Drag Race video. Now back for its fourth appearance, the idea of lining some of the world's fastest cars up for a ten-wide, straight-line, full-throttle run is, well... it's pretty freaking badass.
The lineup this year boasts some impressively fast cars to be sure. The group of ten includes the following darlings: Alfa Romeo 4C, BMW i8, BMW M4, Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, Ford Fiesta ST, Jaguar F-Type R Coupe, Nissan GT-R Nismo, Porsche 911 Turbo S, Subaru WRX STI and, last but not least, the Volkswagen GTI. Give us any one of those for the weekend, and we're happy to take the keys.
It must be said though, that for a publication that draws as much water as Motor Trend does, there are some big cars that we might expect to be here instead. The Lamborghini Huracán or Ferrari 458 Speciale would have added some exotic flare to the list, and the omissions of the Chevy Corvette Stingray (for the second year in a row) and the Dodge Challenger Hellcat are real head-scratchers.

2017 Jaguar F-Type SVR First Drive

Jaguar's F-Type SVR has a special new exhaust. I drove the car in Monterey, California, where there's this tunnel right in the middle of town. You see where I'm going with this. The pipes attached to the "normal" F-Type R's supercharged 5.0-liter V8 is a flatulent riot, one of the most flamboyant wind sections in modern exhaust-dom. And then Jaguar's Special Vehicle Operations, the group of madmen responsible for the Project 7, comes along and rips it all out for the SVR. The room is needed for a rear diffuser, see. So a new system is fabbed using two fancy lightweight alloys, Inconel and titanium. A pair of mufflers sprout where one used to be. More. Better. Louder. Yes, all of that. Geez it's loud. And there's this tunnel, remember. Enter it and lift from the throttle, and it sounds as though there are some kids stowed away in the trunk tossing handfuls of M-80s out the back. "Big report" is what it'd say on the box if the F-Type SVR were a firework. It's dramatic, perhaps excessive. Scratch that – it's definitely excessive. This F-Type is only the second full-production effort from Jaguar Land Rover's SVO, the first being the Range Rover Sport SVR, and so it's also the first Jaguar SVR ever. Whereas that Range Rover combines quickness with surprising cross-country abilities, the F-Type SVR has a singular mission: Go faster. And so, with a tweak of the electronic limiter and some other fiddling, voila!, suddenly the coupe can reach a top speed of 200 mph. The convertible is not far behind at 195. Although there aren't many places in the world where you'll actually want to probe those max velocities, the engine's 575 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque are plenty to risk your license. The SVR adopts many of the engine improvements that hoisted the Project 7 to the same power level but bests that very special car's torque figure thanks mostly to new intercoolers. Remember, the regular F-Type R is only good for 550 hp. Only. What a world we live in. Aside from the added power, this is much more of a range-topping special trim than it is a significantly different model. Like the R, the SVR comes only with all-wheel drive and an eight-speed automatic transmission. Operating it in manual mode is more pleasant, in part because the paddle shifters behind the wheel are made out of aluminum instead of plastic like on other automatic F-Types.

Jaguar spotted testing hardcore F-Type SVR

Jaguar keeps churning out more and more potent versions of the F-Type. And if these latest spy shots are anything to go by, it's got an even more powerful version in the works. Spotted undergoing testing near the Nurburgring is what appears to be a more hardcore variant of Coventry's shapely sports car. Beneath the usual swirly camouflage we can make out a reshaped front end with a deeper splitter and bigger air vents, along with a giant rear wing affixed to the tail atop an enlarged diffuser and quad exhaust tips. The wheels look like they're mounted to a lowered suspension and pack bigger carbon-ceramic brakes as well. Following the Range Rover Sport SVR, Jaguar is likely to label the new F-Type performance flagship as an SVR as well. Jaguar spokesman Richard Agnew confirmed to Autoblog that the R-S badge that previously adorned the most potent Jags is being phased out. That leaves the SVR badge as the most likely to appear on the back of this beast once it reaches production, although that much has yet to be confirmed: "As we stated when Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations was formed," says Agnew, "it is our intention to create a high-performance Jaguar SVR and we are currently evaluating what product to launch first." Nameplates aside, we're more interested in what this amped-up F-Type is packing underneath. We'll likely be looking at an even further enhanced version of the company's signature 5.0-liter supercharged V8 pumping out a good 600 horsepower, which would eclipse both the 550 hp in the F-Type R and the 575 in the Project 7 speedster – potentially driving all four wheels. We'll just have to sit tight to find out, but in the meantime you can scope out the spy shots in the gallery above for a closer look at what Jaguar's Special Vehicle Operations division has got in the cooker. Related Video: