There was a time when you needed a big V-8 to make some serious power, but things have changed a lot over the last 30 years. With the invention of fuel injection, lightweight materials, precision and variable tuning, and constant improvements to forced induction, we can now manage to get 400 ponies out of a little four-cylinder. If you time-traveled back to the 1970s and mentioned this to any gearhead, you would probably get a 1-and-¾-inch wrench planted against your melon, but it is now the reality we live in.
Taking that into consideration, it’s no surprise that Jaguar may extend the SVR badge to smaller engines and even electric-powered cars. When the Jaguar F-Pace launched in Europe earlier this week, Richard Agnew, Jaguar’s Director of Public Relations, said, “We can’t possibly say that SVO has to be V-8, with the way the world is changing and also the way engine technology is changing as well. So it doesn’t have to be a V-8. What it needs to be, though, is have enough over the derivative below it so it does have the credentials to wear the SVR badge.”
Agnew admitted that consumer demand is one of the primary things that drives what engines are used for high-performance vehicles. If the demand for V-8 engines doesn’t exist, then automakers will be forced to quit producing them. Secondly, he also brought up the fact that emissions regulations and related taxes are getting harsher by the year, so the brand is looking at different powertrain options for the future. Jaguar has already admitted that it will eventually have an electric car, and even Agnew admits that electric vehicle performance is huge when it comes to power and torque output.
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