Yet another feather in Jaguar Land Rover’s SVO division’s cap. The limited edition Jaguar XE SV Project 8 has just destroyed the lap record for four-door sedans at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, going around the 12.9-mile German circuit in 7 minutes 23 seconds. That is a full 11 seconds quicker than the previous record!

Of course, Nurburgring records are useless in the real world. All they get you is some bragging rights. But as far as bragging rights go, it’s a good one. Jaguar XE SV Project 8 now has proven credentials, not that anyone would have doubted it if there was not ‘Ring record. After all, the car has a 600 horsepower supercharged V8 engine and is capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds. The record also proves the car has handling abilities on par with the best sports cars.

Mark Stanton, SVO Director, said:“The SVO design and engineering team’s mission was to create the most track-focused road-legal Jaguar in history – not only the fastest, but also the most agile. As a result, only the roof and front door skins of Project 8’s body are carried-over unaltered from XE and 75 per cent of its mechanical hardware is new. This astonishingNürburgringNordschleife record validates the success of such extensive changes.”

John Edwards, Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations Managing Director, added:“SVO exists to push the boundaries of performance, luxury and all-terrain capability. The hand-assembled XE SV Project 8 takes that principle to the limit, extracting supercar-beating performance from Jaguar’s most compact four-door sedan. TheNürburgringNordschleife record underlines our commitment to deliver the most extreme Jaguar ever to Project 8 clients, who will soon experience this sensational sedan for themselves.”