(engines roaring)
(energetic music)
- [Jonny] This is a good lap.
This is going to be a good lap.
- [Randy] Come on, stop, baby. (laughs)
- [Jonny] How was it?
- Best way I can describe it is it's like an 80 or 90% car.
Yeah, I think this car would feel great on the street.
- It does.
- And it's good up to about 80 or 90%,
but when I'm going for that 100%,
when I drive flat out, that's how I drive,
it's not predictable, especially the brakes.
The pedal can go wooden.
I tried on the later laps, I'd just gone a little early
and softer, and they would come in and it would slow down.
But I was braking kind of early.
- Yeah.
(energetic music)
Well, the red Italian couldn't match the orange Brit's fury,
but even with the braking issues Randy experienced,
the Quadrifoglio ran a very respectable
one minute 31.80 seconds.
That's nearly a second quicker than a BMW M3,
and only two seconds off a car that's half race car,
right down to the ride height adjustable suspension,
which presents some unique problems.
- [Jethro] So, now we know the Project 8 is
decisively quicker on the track than the Alfa.
No huge surprise, given the lengths Jaguar went to
in order to create a track-focused machine,
but these are four-door cars,
so that's less than half the story.
Time to dig a little deeper into their characters
and see whether that advantage remains
away from Willow Springs.
- All right, so about to go underneath the Project 8 here.
We're at a service center.
Not 'cause there's anything wrong with the car,
but because we want to take it
from track mode to street mode.
Like this front splitter here?
See, it's pushed all the way out.
You can also see it's scraped to hell and back.
We're going to slide it back about two inches.
The wing is also in attack mode
and we're going to even it out for street mode.
A couple things to point out.
The suspension, obviously, is very adjustable.
You can see the big red spring, and then you can see here
this is called a helper spring,
and the only other production cars I know of
that use that are the Porsche GT3 uses 'em,
I think in the front only, and then the GT3 RS
has helper springs front and rear.
The brakes are ridonkulous, for lack of a better term.
They're carbon ceramic, they're 15.7 inches big,
six piston caliper, nothing like you'd find
on a standard XE.
The exhaust is titanium, the wheel bearings
are made of something that's in a space shuttle engine.
There's just nothing standard about this car.
(energetic music)
It's cool to peek underneath Project 8
and see just how far Jaguar has gone
to create the ultimate track spec sedan.
However, I suspect the novelty would wear off
once you realize every track day requires not one,
but two visits to your local dealership.
One to go from street to track,
and then another to get back to street again.
The rotary dial to select race in the Alfa?
That just seems a lot more practical.
(energetic music)
- So, while Jonny's having the Jag adjusted for road use,
I haven't really got anything to do,
but I wanted to show you why the Giulia
doesn't need all that stuff.
Why it's got speed and agility built into its DNA.
To do that, I've come to an unlikely place.
This is Pagani of Beverly Hills.
Wow, what a place.
They've got a Huayra BC here.
A car I know and love from a previous episode of Ignition.
(tires screeching)
They've got a 1,500 horsepower Bugatti Chiron.
They got F40, LaFerrari.
Basically, the best of the best.
But for me, there is one car that stands above them all.
The best supercar of the past 25 years, maybe ever,
and that is Ferrari 458 Speciale.
I adore this car, and the reason it's relevant?
Well, the chief engineer of this car,
guess what his next project was?
Yup, Alfa Romeo Giulia.
This crack team of engineers had 2 1/2 years
and total freedom to produce something proper,
to endow a normal passenger car
with some of that Speciale magic.
So, Giulia has active aero just like the Ferrari.
It has double wishbone front suspension
and a trick rear axle.
It's got bits of carbon fiber in there,
and the V6 engine is actually a development
of Ferrari's V8 turbo-charged motor, too.
This car in detail, it really is a supercar.
It's got that Ferrari DNA.
The truth is, it just eats a BMW M3 or Mercedes C63 S.
That's why we've had to roll out the Project 8.
It's the only sedan we can think of
that can stand comparison with this car.