Stand by for Jaguar SVO overload

Jaguar Land Rover has just launched the second SVR model created by its Special Vehicle Operations team, the F-TYPE SVR, but the SVR badge won't necessarily be reserved for high-performance passenger cars.

In fact, while last year's Range Rover Sport SVR confirmed the SVR name will also been seen on SUVs, SVO managing director John Edwards says all models in the JLR range could also come in luxurious SVAutobiography and extended-capability SVX treatments.

“We look at every car [in the JLR portfolio] and say ‘could we have an SVR version of this car, could we have an SVX, or an SVAutobiography’, and the reality is that I could see all three of those brands featuring on all of our cars,” he stated at the international launch of Jaguar's faster ever production car.

“They all have the potential to be a performance car, or a car with extended capability or a luxury version.”

Edwards said that offering prestige buyers not only choice, but a greater degree of personalisation options, was a key part in the strategy to expand the breadth of the fledgling SVO brand, which aims to extend the performance (SVR), capability (SVX) and luxury (SVAutobiogrpahy) characteristics of JLR models.

“When you buy a car it’s both a rational and an emotional decision. Of course you want a car that’s reliable, to get you from A to B, but you also want it to say something about you. You want to enjoy driving it, and you want to enjoy the way it makes you feel,” he said.

With SVR-enhanced XE and XF models on the way, and an SVR version of the new F-PACE SUV also under consideration, Edwards said SVO's yet-to-be-released SVX label would draw those chasing improved off-road ability.

“The SXV brand, which we haven’t launched yet, is all about capability. I think of those vehicles that enter Paris to Dakar and the Camel Trophy, and think that somewhere in between the two is an extreme version of our products,” he said, hinting at the potential of an extreme off-roader.

Edwards explained that as with any new business, the guidelines of SVO and its various divisions was still largely a work in progress. The SVR brand particularly, with two models already in showrooms, was still open to adaptation, but in the short-term at least would offer high-performance and all-wheel drive.

“In principle any car that wears the SVR badge will be all-wheel drive – we think it’s more appropriate for the kind of product we’re trying to deliver,” he explained.

“However, these rules are written in sand rather than concrete and, who knows, we may challenge those rules someday.”

In addition to an SVO model range potentially spanning everything from a tarmac-burning SVR version of the next Defender to a rock-hopping F-TYPE SVR Convertible, Edwards said JLR's tuning division would also – eventually -- produce a follow-up to its first model, the F-TYPE Project 7.

“We learnt quite a lot from Project 7. In fact, we underestimated its appeal. The initial forecast was nowhere near 250 cars, but when we first showed that car at Goodwood, we took 130 orders in one day, so I think we could have easily sold 500 cars,” he admitted.

“From a pure business perspective that would have been a good thing. It cost us a lot of money to do a car like that, and there is certainly an opportunity to make another.

“If you look at our business and ask could we do a Range Rover or an XF, or could we do a Project 8, then it’s obvious we’ve got an awful lot of things we could do.

"A Project 8 is low on the priority list, of course. We’ve got more mainstream products to do [first], and at the end of the day we’re in business, so it has to be a 'head' decision. I’m not in business to make cars that don’t generate a return and don’t help us invest in the business again.”