And now, if I may, I'd like to talk about the Jaguar XE.
Not your hair.
Um...it is a really very nice little car, if I'm honest.
It's very good looking. It's not particularly expensive.
Uh...it rides beautifully - very beautifully, in fact.
And, as a result of all that,
people ignore it and buy a BMW instead.
So Jaguar went to its skunkworks,
which is based in a shed,
and they said, "Could you make a fast version?
One that will get everybody talking."
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
JEREMY: The standard low cost procedure
for turning a normal saloon into a sports saloon
is to give it some fat tyres, a nice V6 engine...
(ENGINE ROARING)
...and maybe some bucket seats.
But the boffins at Jag decided to go...
...a bit further than that.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Welcome, everyone, to what's called...
...the Project 8.
The first thing you need to know
is that the only bits that these two cars have in common
are the roof and the front doors.
Everything else is changed.
For some very good reasons.
First of all, they decided they needed carbon ceramic brakes
that were much bigger than the brakes on the standard car.
Now, that meant they needed
bigger wheels to go round the brakes.
And bigger wheels wouldn't fit in these arches.
So they had to redesign the whole front of the car.
The headlamps, everything.
Then there was the track -
the gap between the wheels, front and back.
They decided they'd like that to be wider.
That meant fitting flared wheel arches.
So that meant a new panel here... and here,
and a new back door,
and a new panel here and here.
Then came the engine.
They decided they didn't want to mess about
and that they'd use a five-litre supercharged V8.
But that wouldn't fit.
So, to get it in, they had to cut away at the bulkhead.
And when it was in place, they thought,
"Wait a minute. That's all a bit heavy.
We need to save some weight at the front of the car."
So, the bonnet, as you can see here, is carbon fibre.
And so are the front wings.
And so is all this.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Suspension? Oh, yes, that was changed as well.
It now has Bilstein dampers that cost £1,000 each.
And rose joints. And ceramic wheel bearings.
-Like you get on a race car. -(ENGINE GROWLS)
On top of all that, the eight-speed gearbox also needed beefing up.
And so did the four-wheel drive system.
And then they had to get rid of the spare wheel
and the well in which it sits
to fit some under-floor aerodynamics.
And when they added up the cost of all the work they'd done, there was a problem.
In order to make any money at all,
the Project 8 would have to cost £150,000.
That's four times more than the standard car.
Four!
So, here's the question.
How mad would you have to be to spend £150,000...
...on a car that was designed and built in a glorified shed
in the Midlands... in about 18 months?
And the simple answer is...
...not mad at all, because this car...
is fan-bleeding-tastic!
The engine may be ten years old,
but it has a huge amount of character.
And nigh on 600 horsepower!
(ENGINE ROARING)
That means 0 to 60 in 3.3 seconds...
...and a top speed of 200.
Even more impressive,
ten minutes before the Nurburgring shut its doors for the winter...
...Jag's Project 8 engineers
asked if they could have one last go round it...
and they shattered the record for four-door saloons
with a time of seven minutes, 21 seconds.
That's blisteringly quick.