NY 2018: Jaguar F-Pace SVR

Peter Anderson

28 Mar 2018 — 5 min read

If you want a fast SUV, there’s a new contender – the Jaguar F-Pace SVR. Oh, we knew it was coming, but wow, here it is and it looks tough.

F-Pace SVR

From the minds that brought you the wonderful F-Type SVR – a firm favourite here at The Redline – comes an SVO-fettled F-Pace. The company is having a massive year, and just about all of it is pivoting around SUVs and not just Jags.

We knew this was coming, but courtesy of the New York Motor Show, we’ve got the juice.

As expected, the F-Pace SVR packs Jag’s 5.0-litre supercharged V8, with with kW (550PS) and a stinking 680Nm of torque. That means a 0-100km/h (0-62mph) time of 4.3 seconds. Top speed is 283km/h (173mph). So that’s not wasting any time.

“The F-PACE SVR delivers the handling and agility to match its performance. Everything from the steering to the bespoke suspension set-up has been tuned specifically for our performance SUV and the result is a vehicle that lives up to the promise of both the F-PACE and SVR names.”
Mike Cross, Chief Engineer, Vehicle Integrity, Jaguar Land Rover

Chassis

It’s not all about the donk and an SVR is never just a straight-line rip-snorter. The team flung the the brakes, suspension and wheels from the top-spec S to sharpen up the F-Pace experience.

Adaptive suspension is standard but has had the usual damping changes to support the keener driver. The front springs are 30 percent stiffer while the rear spring rate moves up 10 percent. Between the rear wheels is an active differential which should promise tail-happy nonsense in the right mode. Torque vectoring will keep things under control when you’re on maximum attack.

The brakes are bigger, too, with 395mm up front and 396mm down the back – they’re huge and two-piece hobbies with big calipers.

The F-Pace SVR rolls on 21-inch forged alloys and you can tick a box to fit 22s. Tyres are wider at the rear for added rear traction. This thing should really punch out of corners.

Also on board is the always-excellent ZF eight-speed automatic, revised electrically-assisted steering and the chassis is stiffer.

Aero & Weight Saving

Obviously with more cylinders, you need more cooling. And with a higher top speed, things need to be a bit more slippery. Add to all that the ride height, aero is even more critical.

Front and rear bumpers, deeper side sills and a flip spoiler all combine to cut lift. The front bumpers in particular are all about cooling, getting more air around the crackerjack V8. There is also a set of recalibrated driving and transmission modes which will be fun for the driver, less great for grandma in the back seat.

The Active Exhaust is even 6.6kg cooler than the standard unit, which also promises that signature anti-social noise.

Interior

The first thing current F-Pace fans will notice is the gear selector. The show-off rising-from-the-console rotary dial has gone, replaced by the F-Type’s rather more practical “Sports” selector. The paddle shifters come in aluminium which is always nicer than cheap plastic units.

The new seats are “slimline” and with Jag’s lozenge pattern, with liberal applications of SVR logos throughout the cabin. You’ll be able to choose from four colour schemes, too.

Where and When?

Pretty much anywhere you can already buy SVR cars and no doubt dealers’ books are open. Deliveries start in the UK summer of 2018 and will doubtless trickle through to other markets as the year progresses.

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