Jaguar Land Rover is expanding its Special Vehicle Operations – skunkworks equivalent to BMW’s M GmbH, AMG and the like – with the announcement of a £20m (about AU$35 million) stand-alone facility in Coventry, England.
With a staff of over 200, the facility will be able to concentrate on more vehicles in the mould of the 405kW Range Rover Sport SVR – the fastest SUV ever recorded around the Nurburgring (reviewcoming soon) – plus the ballistic Jaguar F-Type SVR.
A very lofty target was set for the environment of the centre, which was apparently inspired by facilities usually seen in Formula 1. In a statement, the company said:
“The SVO Technical Centre is very modern facility, inspired by a Formula 1 engineering centre. It covers 20,000 square metres including a manufacturing area, one of the world’s most eco-friendly and advanced paint shops, custom-built commissioning suite, technical suite, presentation suite and offices.”
The new plant is extremely kind to the planet, with the ‘smart ovens’ said to save enough gas to heat over 65,000 British homes.
Thanks to this new development, we can expect work to begin in earnest on some tarmac-destroying variants of Jaguar and Land Rover’s other cars soon. Jaguar Land Rover said:
“This new Technical Centre enables us to build on the successful launches of the Range Rover Sport SVR, Range Rover SVAutobiography and Jaguar F-TYPE SVR , and provide an excellent foundation for the growth of the SVO business with the introduction of exciting new Vehicle Personalisation programmes.”
