Wednesday 24th October 2018

Jaguar adds 600hp Project 8 to Race Taxi stable

XJR575 not fast enough? Jaguar is now offering up in an even quicker way of being taxied round the Ring

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The Ring and Race Taxi format is well established at the Nordschleife now; pay your euros, jump in the passenger seat, hold on tight for a few minutes while being scared, share onboard video for weeks after. Jaguar has been running an XJR575 through its Nurburgring experience centre for a while now, along with an F-Type SVR, but now the latter has been replaced - by an XE Project 8.

Yep, that means Jaguar's fleet of Nurburgring cars are a pair of four-door saloons. Marvellous news. Still, the XE is of course better suited to the task than most, having clocked that incredible 7:21 lap last year - making it the fastest production four-door to have lapped there - and designed specifically with circuit driving in mind. Indeed Jaguar describes the place as "an essential part" of the car's development. Even though a 7:21 isn't going to happen with paying customers on board, Jaguar does say a lap will feature speeds in excess of 155mph and cornering force of up to 1.8g. 

The bad news? Well it'll have to be one at a time, sadly, and not four-up, as the XE being used as the Race Taxi will be a car equipped with the Track Pack, and thus not include rear seats. Shame. Time in the passenger seat costs €199 per lap, with the Race Taxi experience still running until November this year before closing for the winter. Book your space here!

 

[BFleming]

I saw a project 8 at the Nurburgring two weeks ago (not this one I hasten to add), complete with 'Prototype Vehicle' sticker on the back bumper. This new orange one shows up on the DVLA website as having '0g CO2/km', which is the usual telltale of UK prototype / evaluation vehicles. They must have some generous insurance that allows them to carry passengers on the Ring in such a car - particularly as Dale Lomas or Celia Martin don't hold back! But it is big business nowadays, with the BMW ringtaxis retired & the taxis run by (at least) 4 different companies, each allowed 2 cars at any one time. I did the Apex taxi in the M3 driven by Moritz Kranz. Phenominal.

The Project 8 I saw there: