Jaguar May Kill R Models To Let The SVRs Shine

Just a few years ago, the Jaguar F-Type R sat proudly atop the brand’s sports car fleet. Now, the British marque is thinking about ditching its R models altogether to let the SVR-branded models truly shine.

During an interview with Auto Express, Jaguar Special Vehicle Operations design director Wayne Burgess said the F-Type R and F-Type SVR have started to compete against each other.

“To be completely honest Jaguar is a fairly small brand and probably in reality there is not enough room in each model line to have an R and an SVR.

“We have found F-Type R and F-Type SVR kind of compete against each other. The truth of the matter is that F-Type R is a great car and, in some respects, SVR has a challenging time because the R is such a good car in the first place,” he said.

If Jaguar does ditch the F-Type R, and follows suit across its range, performance-oriented models would be restricted to those that wear ‘S’ and ‘SVR’ badges. The perfect example of this is the F-Pace which isn’t available in R guise and instead as the 3.0-liter supercharged V6 ‘S’ model and the recently-unveiled 5.0-liter supercharged V8 ‘SVR’.

“You can see the dilemma we have and why F-Pace has gone the way it has. From a design and product point of view, it is great to have an SVR because you have that extra headroom and level of differentiation. Sidestepping an R model also sidesteps potential pricing issues,” Burgess said.