Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations readies first car for Goodwood
Jaguar Land Rover’s newly-minted Special Operations bespoke and performance arm will show-off its first model at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK between June 26 and 29.
Announced earlier this month, Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations is a new division within the company tasked with designing and engineering halo versions of the group’s road cars, plus bespoke commissions from customers and limited-run heritage ‘re-creations’.
Likely to fall within its brief are road-going versions of the hardcore F-type Project 7 (pictured below) first seen at Goodwood last year and the run of six retro lightweight E-Type models announced last month, as well as the extreme Range Rover Sport ‘RS’ spied in March this year.
JLR is keeping whatever it will premiere at Goodwood tightly under wraps for now, but promises it will stage a world-first reveal of a new “near-future” product of some sort.
Joining the mysterious new model at Goodwood will be the new F-Type R Coupe and XFR-S Sportbrake, both of which will make high-speed runs up the famous hill-climb.
Also on show will be both the 1954 D-type prototype (pictured below) and the 1956 ‘Long Nose’ model, the latter of which will be driven up the hill by ex-Grand Prix racer Bruno Senna, who recently covered more than 1600km in this car at the 2014 Mille Miglia with co-driver Martin Brundle.
Other Jaguar Heritage competition racers in action at Goodwood will include the ‘Group 44’ E-type, the Group-A XJS TWR and the 1988 Le Mans-winning XJR-9 LM, the latter being reunited with one of its victorious team drivers Andy Wallace.
As reported, JLR’s special operations division will be based close to its base in Gaydon, UK, and run by project chief of the axed C-X75 supercar produced with Williams F1, Paul Newsome.
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